I have a lunchtime ritual at work, old fogey that I am becoming, whereby I eat my daily micro p-corn and Peanut M&Ms whilst perusing first the daily news clips posted on the company's web site (staying abreast of the latest in the securities industry) and second Yahoo Finance (staying abreast of the market). YaFi always has a bunch of business-related articles, and yesterday had one about Generation Y in the workplace. I have a great affection for that group, being as my kids are both members, and it got me to comparing them -- their habits, outlooks, etc. -- against the points made in the piece...which were pretty much on the money.
I wound up cruising through the rest of the day with an optimism I haven't felt in a long time. I mean, if you were to base your current big-picture view of How's It Going on the daily news you'd likely conclude The End Of The World Is Nigh. Many polls reflect this gloomy despair.
So today Otto is here to tell ya: With Gen Y rising, and the Boomers waning, everything's gonna be all right. No woman, no cry. Life IS good. And I will submit to you as The Face and Standard-Bearer of Gen Y, none other than Harry Potter.
If you haven't read any of the books (and, full disclosure, I have not -- none of them) or seen the movies (here, I have -- ALL of them), you really should...because whether you're managing people in the workplace, making investments for yer retirement, or even preparing for your next Life Phase as a grandparent, the next 20-30 years are going to be shaped and driven NOT by the Hillary Clintons and Fred Thompsons of the world but by the Harry Potters. The Sixties Hippy Generation is loaded to the gills with conceits, and maybe the biggest one of all is that their legacy will endure. Hogwash (or maybe Hogwarts?)...much of what-is-what in Gen Y is contrapuntal. Such as:
1) When it comes to business, Gen Y will take data over emotion. If I had to read a Big Metaphor into the Potter series, magic = technology. Marches in the streets and the associated sloganeering will never be as powerful as what the computer is telling you.
2) Divorce and abortions are for losers. Which is why the adult characters in the Potter series are ALWAYS on such shifting sands, morally. Is Severus Snape a white hat, or a black hat? Whose side are the grown-ups on? And why do so many of them wind up acting in ways that benefit only themselves? THAT is how the Yers see the Boomers...and it's a crushing indictment.
3) The McMansion Era is dead. There are none of them in the Potter movies, and no aspirations towards them. They cost too much and take too much time to clean.
4) The Muscle Car Era is NOT dead. Another Big (but much easier) Metaphor: Broomstick = Your ride. Which should be fast, manueverable, and a hell of a lot of fun to drive. Yay Mustangs!
5) Relationships are more important than power. Harry in fact would rather be on good terms with his best friends than be Maximum Leader. Can the Boomers say the same?
6) Finally, Parents Matter. Their love and attention and support are what Harry misses, and wants, more than anything else. How does that square up with the attitude the Sixties Kids had towards their folks?
If the Hippies are a poison, the Yers are the antidote. If the Hippies are mold, the Yers are bleach. If the Hippies are rust, the Yers are TrueCoat. If the Hippies are the flu, the Yers are amoxycillin.
We have a LOT to look forward to, as Gen Y comes into its own. Personally, I can't wait.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
The Horror
From Michael Yon, via NRO, linked by The King:
The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about eleven years old. As Lt. David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.
So for all of you Live Earthers out there, and you Economic Doomsters, and you Universal Health Care Now agitators, and you No Blood For Oil pacifists...Otto has a very short but direct message:
The Clear And Present Danger, The Horror, is right in front of you. Stop whatever else you are doing, right this minute, and pay attention to it, lest you be destroyed by it. Everything else is a very distant second place.
The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about eleven years old. As Lt. David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.
So for all of you Live Earthers out there, and you Economic Doomsters, and you Universal Health Care Now agitators, and you No Blood For Oil pacifists...Otto has a very short but direct message:
The Clear And Present Danger, The Horror, is right in front of you. Stop whatever else you are doing, right this minute, and pay attention to it, lest you be destroyed by it. Everything else is a very distant second place.
Monday, July 02, 2007
For All You Golf Fans Out There...
It's always cool when you manage to do something, accomplish something, that you've never done before in your life. It's trebly cool to do it once you're older. I mean, 49 isn't OLD old, exactly...although I would have told you it WAS twenty years ago...and am now hearkening back to a great comment a golfing bud up in WV made a few years ago. He had just turned fifty the previous month and I asked him how he handled it. "Well," he said (paraphrasing), "that number certainly gets your attention. By any standard, you're now on the back nine of your life when you turn fifty."
So, right, you're about to make the turn on your life, and you do something you've never been able to do before. It gives you hope. It inspires. Such was the case in my round of golf on Saturday, on the back nine, ironically.
I hit all nine greens in regulation.
For you non-golfers, that means my ball was on the putting surface in two shots less than the standard score ("par") for each hole. On the par 3s, my ball was on in 1. On the par 3s, in 2, and on the par 5s, 3.
What does it take to accomplish this? Basically, you can't miss a shot. Meaning, you can't top the ball, or chunk it, or hit a bad slice or ugly hook. You have to hit the ball straight and solidly on every shot. I wouldn't call it perfection, but it's getting there.
And golf is such a hard game. SUCH a hard game. All those muscle groups, large and small, from the glutes to the little stringy whatevers in your fingers, they've all got to cooperate and work together as they move in one direction to bring the club back, and then pretty much the opposite direction as you move the club forward and strike the ball.
Oh, and I did this off the blue tees...which is no huge shakes when the blues only play to 3,300 yards at The Woodies. But I normally play off the whites, so this was like jumping off the big diving board at the pool when you normally jump off the little one.
So before this post completely disintegrates, the point...the key...it IS aimed at golf fans, already...
Distance control.
Every single iron I hit was within a pace or two of the flag, distance-wise. They weren't always on line, but their weights were about spot-on. There wasn't much wind, which helped alot, but I REALLY worked hard on calculating distances, pin positions, and even elevations between the ball and the green surface.
And at least for the average golfer, the weekend duffer, whatever, that may be a bit of new news. I play with them alot, and by and large their number one goal on approaches is to hit the ball STRAIGHT. Time and again, their shots are straight, but short...or less frequently, straight and too long. And what I perceive is that they look at the distance and think, "My best shots with a (fill in the blank, let's say nine iron) go X yards. I have X yards to the flag. It's a nine iron."
NO!
How far does your AVERAGE shot go with this club?
That's the crucial question.
I had those decisions twice, on that beautiful back nine. Perfect sand wedge or average pitching wedge? Both times, I selected MORE CLUB, the PW, and made the assumption that I would not hit the ball perfectly, but perfectly average. Both times, doink! On the green.
I had two birds, one three putt bogey (the F word had to have been invented by a golfer after a three putt bogey), and shot 35.
Easy game, right?
Nah.
I had 47 on the front, with two OB. I couldn't play dead on the front.
Hard game. SUCH a hard game. Fun game, though. REALLY fun when you play well. Inspiring, even...
So, right, you're about to make the turn on your life, and you do something you've never been able to do before. It gives you hope. It inspires. Such was the case in my round of golf on Saturday, on the back nine, ironically.
I hit all nine greens in regulation.
For you non-golfers, that means my ball was on the putting surface in two shots less than the standard score ("par") for each hole. On the par 3s, my ball was on in 1. On the par 3s, in 2, and on the par 5s, 3.
What does it take to accomplish this? Basically, you can't miss a shot. Meaning, you can't top the ball, or chunk it, or hit a bad slice or ugly hook. You have to hit the ball straight and solidly on every shot. I wouldn't call it perfection, but it's getting there.
And golf is such a hard game. SUCH a hard game. All those muscle groups, large and small, from the glutes to the little stringy whatevers in your fingers, they've all got to cooperate and work together as they move in one direction to bring the club back, and then pretty much the opposite direction as you move the club forward and strike the ball.
Oh, and I did this off the blue tees...which is no huge shakes when the blues only play to 3,300 yards at The Woodies. But I normally play off the whites, so this was like jumping off the big diving board at the pool when you normally jump off the little one.
So before this post completely disintegrates, the point...the key...it IS aimed at golf fans, already...
Distance control.
Every single iron I hit was within a pace or two of the flag, distance-wise. They weren't always on line, but their weights were about spot-on. There wasn't much wind, which helped alot, but I REALLY worked hard on calculating distances, pin positions, and even elevations between the ball and the green surface.
And at least for the average golfer, the weekend duffer, whatever, that may be a bit of new news. I play with them alot, and by and large their number one goal on approaches is to hit the ball STRAIGHT. Time and again, their shots are straight, but short...or less frequently, straight and too long. And what I perceive is that they look at the distance and think, "My best shots with a (fill in the blank, let's say nine iron) go X yards. I have X yards to the flag. It's a nine iron."
NO!
How far does your AVERAGE shot go with this club?
That's the crucial question.
I had those decisions twice, on that beautiful back nine. Perfect sand wedge or average pitching wedge? Both times, I selected MORE CLUB, the PW, and made the assumption that I would not hit the ball perfectly, but perfectly average. Both times, doink! On the green.
I had two birds, one three putt bogey (the F word had to have been invented by a golfer after a three putt bogey), and shot 35.
Easy game, right?
Nah.
I had 47 on the front, with two OB. I couldn't play dead on the front.
Hard game. SUCH a hard game. Fun game, though. REALLY fun when you play well. Inspiring, even...
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Celluloid Excellence
Son and I went to see Knocked Up last evening. And then I spent practically all night dreaming about the movie. When was the last time that happened, a movie having that kind of effect on my mind? Probably George Roy Hill's A Little Romance, which was like what, 1980? No, 1979. So, a while.
Knocked Up was that good. Nay, great. Son pointed out on the drive home that at a couple of points in the movie, especially the crucial scene between the main guy character (Seth Rogen) and the main girl character's (Katherine Heigl's) sister (in an unbelievable performance from director Judd Apatow's real-life wife, Leslie Mann) outside the delivery room, several of the audience were hitting the lines, word for word, as the dialogue played out. THAT would indicate a pretty good repeat viewing audience, eh?
It wouldn't be hard for me to spend this blog riffing like Keith Richards about the several deep political messages embedded in the flick. Ross Douthat from National Review already did a pretty good take on that angle of it all. Suffice it to say that while the average evangelical Christians I know would be greatly shocked by the language (F bombs fly like freakin' Dresden), alcohol and especially drug usage (massive), and zero-subtlety depictions of the OB-GYN world (yes, there are a few seconds -- real? hard to tell -- of an actual birth, uh, down there, you know)...shocked enough to likely leave the theater...the ultimate message of this movie is of a piece with what they, we, believe. And have been trying to sway the culture on for the past thirty years.
And I'm not gonna lie to ya...you can read about all the statistics you want re the drop in teen pregnancies and the drop in abortion rates and whatever...but when Big-Time Ho-Lie-Wood releases a movie that all but says, I mean right up there on the screen, that abortion is the taking of a human life...there is HUGE vindication. There shouldn't be, I know, but there is...
Because the film is structured the way it is, the baby at eight weeks is already being acknowledged as a living thing, a viable thing, viewable via the magical technology of ultrasound. We're not talking second or third trimesters here, basketball-in-stomach sized here, we're talking eight weeks. And in four week segments after that, neatly done as intros to the next chapter of the story, we get more ultrasounds. And the baby gets bigger and bigger on the screen, until it's basically overspilling the screen towards the end. Any thought of "mass of tissue" just disintegrates in a presentation like this. Whoomp, there it is: Head, heart, hands, feet. A human being.
Of course, my dream-spiced sleep may have been because the story of the guy and the girl, and what happened after they got together, is very similar to our story, my wife of 25 years and I. VERY similar. The way I handled the news of the pregnancy, the fights, the Big Fight (brought on in no small part by my continued pursuit of partying), the split, and the reconciliation. And then the baby. Who was, and is, my son. Among all the other things to recommend about this flick, from the way it skewers the Hippie Insensibilities of the Sixties/Seventies (Becker and Fagen from Steely Dan may still be in the hospital) to its utterly democratic sharing of POVs for the guy and girl characters, the ending is magnificent. Baby born, being loved by both parents, screen fade to black...and then back up for some home movie shots to finish, with people in the audience going aww-w-w and me fighting back tears as the baby girl is now two, now three, now four, looking incredibly like a little of Rogen and a little of Heigl...
I can't help myself...I have to end with this: A political party that, for whatever its other flaws, supports The Right To Life is a political party that's got it right. And a political party that, for whatever its other virtues, supports abortion is a political party that cannot, and must not, be trusted with the big and important decisions about life -- LIFE -- in this country.
Knocked Up was that good. Nay, great. Son pointed out on the drive home that at a couple of points in the movie, especially the crucial scene between the main guy character (Seth Rogen) and the main girl character's (Katherine Heigl's) sister (in an unbelievable performance from director Judd Apatow's real-life wife, Leslie Mann) outside the delivery room, several of the audience were hitting the lines, word for word, as the dialogue played out. THAT would indicate a pretty good repeat viewing audience, eh?
It wouldn't be hard for me to spend this blog riffing like Keith Richards about the several deep political messages embedded in the flick. Ross Douthat from National Review already did a pretty good take on that angle of it all. Suffice it to say that while the average evangelical Christians I know would be greatly shocked by the language (F bombs fly like freakin' Dresden), alcohol and especially drug usage (massive), and zero-subtlety depictions of the OB-GYN world (yes, there are a few seconds -- real? hard to tell -- of an actual birth, uh, down there, you know)...shocked enough to likely leave the theater...the ultimate message of this movie is of a piece with what they, we, believe. And have been trying to sway the culture on for the past thirty years.
And I'm not gonna lie to ya...you can read about all the statistics you want re the drop in teen pregnancies and the drop in abortion rates and whatever...but when Big-Time Ho-Lie-Wood releases a movie that all but says, I mean right up there on the screen, that abortion is the taking of a human life...there is HUGE vindication. There shouldn't be, I know, but there is...
Because the film is structured the way it is, the baby at eight weeks is already being acknowledged as a living thing, a viable thing, viewable via the magical technology of ultrasound. We're not talking second or third trimesters here, basketball-in-stomach sized here, we're talking eight weeks. And in four week segments after that, neatly done as intros to the next chapter of the story, we get more ultrasounds. And the baby gets bigger and bigger on the screen, until it's basically overspilling the screen towards the end. Any thought of "mass of tissue" just disintegrates in a presentation like this. Whoomp, there it is: Head, heart, hands, feet. A human being.
Of course, my dream-spiced sleep may have been because the story of the guy and the girl, and what happened after they got together, is very similar to our story, my wife of 25 years and I. VERY similar. The way I handled the news of the pregnancy, the fights, the Big Fight (brought on in no small part by my continued pursuit of partying), the split, and the reconciliation. And then the baby. Who was, and is, my son. Among all the other things to recommend about this flick, from the way it skewers the Hippie Insensibilities of the Sixties/Seventies (Becker and Fagen from Steely Dan may still be in the hospital) to its utterly democratic sharing of POVs for the guy and girl characters, the ending is magnificent. Baby born, being loved by both parents, screen fade to black...and then back up for some home movie shots to finish, with people in the audience going aww-w-w and me fighting back tears as the baby girl is now two, now three, now four, looking incredibly like a little of Rogen and a little of Heigl...
I can't help myself...I have to end with this: A political party that, for whatever its other flaws, supports The Right To Life is a political party that's got it right. And a political party that, for whatever its other virtues, supports abortion is a political party that cannot, and must not, be trusted with the big and important decisions about life -- LIFE -- in this country.
Friday, June 29, 2007
True Diversity
Re the immigration bill vote yesterday (courtesy Wash Times):
In yesterday's vote, 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans and one independent voted to proceed with the bill, while 37 Republicans, 15 Democrats and one independent voted to block it.
As Otto has written previously, it's always been amazing how little diversity one sees on the Demmie side when it comes to votes of major import in Congress. Well, no more, at least on this vote.
16 out of 33 Democrats voted against (Bernie Sanders is an Independent in name only), which is a 48% defection rate from "the party line."
And yet I see all these stories today about how the Reepub/Conservative side is now "fractured."
That's fine. Be thee a conservative, or an evangelical, in Today's America, criticism just comes with the package. You get used to it.
Let's see how those renegade Demmies fare.
In yesterday's vote, 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans and one independent voted to proceed with the bill, while 37 Republicans, 15 Democrats and one independent voted to block it.
As Otto has written previously, it's always been amazing how little diversity one sees on the Demmie side when it comes to votes of major import in Congress. Well, no more, at least on this vote.
16 out of 33 Democrats voted against (Bernie Sanders is an Independent in name only), which is a 48% defection rate from "the party line."
And yet I see all these stories today about how the Reepub/Conservative side is now "fractured."
That's fine. Be thee a conservative, or an evangelical, in Today's America, criticism just comes with the package. You get used to it.
Let's see how those renegade Demmies fare.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Sympathy, You Should Be The Superstar, That You Are...
So if I had like ten thou readers a day and I decided I HAD to weigh in on this whole immigration thang, I'd be killing myself right now, looking for links and opinions that made sense and statistics and dollar amounts and all of that other stuff that goes with the territory when you are a Responsible Journalist...
But I don't -- and the freedom accompanying that fact allows Otto to just toss out a whole bunch of random thought about what it all means, for the GOP (who according to The King is in danger of becoming extinct) and especially for Dubya. Let's start with The Man, and get to the party later.
Contrary to Popular Opinion (that of course being whatever the national media thinks), George W. Bush is not a fool. Neither is Cheney, or Karl Rove, or anybody else in the administration. You don't get to positions like that if you're a flat-out drooler. The people who think that's so are people who have never succeeded in any corporation, or haven't tried to. In business, as in politics, you have to have some slick, sure; you have to have some dealmaking skills, sure; but at rock-bottom you've got to work hard and have some smarts. If you don't believe that, you probably DO believe that The Whole System is corrupt, man. And I would say to you -- go smoke some more grass, then. That's your choice, and I'll leave you alone...but you're still WRONG...
Thus, the President and his core team have made a rational decision to back and produce new legislation on immigration. There can be only two reasons why: 1) They believe a new approach is needed; or 2) They have made a calculation that legislation won't pass, but it is in the long-term interest of themselves and their party to back it until it fails.
I think there are a ton of things that could support position 1, beginning with Bush's ties to Tejas and his real-world observations, both as a businessman and as governor, about Hispanic immigrants, both legal and illegal. But something, some gut feeling, tells me that position 2 is really what's going on.
Because, first, I hear all this chatter about "Bush squandering the few pennies of political capital he has left." Well, yes...exactly. What's the difference between leaving office with four pennies in pocket, versus nothing? Again: He's no fool. There are in my estimate four Big Things that he's spent large capital on during his 78 months in office. The War On Terror, Cutting Taxes, Getting Sane Jurists on the Supreme Court, and Social Security Reform. Three of out four have been payoffs. For you non-sports types, that's a batting average of .750 -- astronomical. So why not spend it all, before you leave?
In fact...in fact...what if he'd decided that getting the country to focus on the enormous costs associated with amnesty from a Social Security/Medicaid standpoint was the best way to move the ball forward on reforming those behemoth social programs?
In fact, what if he'd decided that forcing Congress's hand on immigration would result in large, large numbers of voters getting pissed about the whole damn bunch in Washington, cleaning House (so to speak) in '08? Speaking as a movement conservative, it wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit if Hagel, Lugar, McCain, Specter, Hatch...all of these entrenched, sometime Republicans, got the boot next fall. Shake the place up a bit, eh? Term limits without the legislation, eh? A massive forest fire, to clear the way for the Next Generation of new growth, eh?
In fact, what if he'd decided to exit with an approval rating so low that ANY Republican presidential candidate who gets the nomination could bill himself as The Candidate For Change, and have the latitude to separate himself from the past administration, thereby improving his chances? Clinton left office with some gargantuan poll numbers -- and did Gore benefit?
Lastly, in fact, what if he'd decided to pick this issue as the biggest, best way to show that The Federal Government isn't really capable of that much, at least on this issue, and get people thinking about individual state solutions instead? I mean, I don't hear that many people in Montana complaining about the immigration problem. Shouldn't the southern border states be dealing with this, first and foremost? Isn't it about time that people started looking somewhere else than freakin' Washington, DC for the answers to all of their freakin' problems?
And here again, I'm sure The Dope Crowd, The Sixties Movement, would have a major issue with this approach. So cynical. So Machiavellian. So manipulative. And I would say to them: Sober up, and grow up too, while you're at it. You do stuff like this every freakin' DAY. Like, your husband wants to buy a new sports car. Instead of saying no, flat no, you go along at first...knowing inwardly that the whole purchase process will get him to focus on finances, which he doesn't get involved with otherwise, and then he'll see how he needs to get a raise in order to make the nut on the car...which he does. Is that cynical? Is that Machiavellian? Is that manipulative?
No, it's life. So, like, get one.
Again I say: History will prove out the good and great success that was the George W. Bush administration. He knew what he was doing, and he did it right. Book it. Out.
But I don't -- and the freedom accompanying that fact allows Otto to just toss out a whole bunch of random thought about what it all means, for the GOP (who according to The King is in danger of becoming extinct) and especially for Dubya. Let's start with The Man, and get to the party later.
Contrary to Popular Opinion (that of course being whatever the national media thinks), George W. Bush is not a fool. Neither is Cheney, or Karl Rove, or anybody else in the administration. You don't get to positions like that if you're a flat-out drooler. The people who think that's so are people who have never succeeded in any corporation, or haven't tried to. In business, as in politics, you have to have some slick, sure; you have to have some dealmaking skills, sure; but at rock-bottom you've got to work hard and have some smarts. If you don't believe that, you probably DO believe that The Whole System is corrupt, man. And I would say to you -- go smoke some more grass, then. That's your choice, and I'll leave you alone...but you're still WRONG...
Thus, the President and his core team have made a rational decision to back and produce new legislation on immigration. There can be only two reasons why: 1) They believe a new approach is needed; or 2) They have made a calculation that legislation won't pass, but it is in the long-term interest of themselves and their party to back it until it fails.
I think there are a ton of things that could support position 1, beginning with Bush's ties to Tejas and his real-world observations, both as a businessman and as governor, about Hispanic immigrants, both legal and illegal. But something, some gut feeling, tells me that position 2 is really what's going on.
Because, first, I hear all this chatter about "Bush squandering the few pennies of political capital he has left." Well, yes...exactly. What's the difference between leaving office with four pennies in pocket, versus nothing? Again: He's no fool. There are in my estimate four Big Things that he's spent large capital on during his 78 months in office. The War On Terror, Cutting Taxes, Getting Sane Jurists on the Supreme Court, and Social Security Reform. Three of out four have been payoffs. For you non-sports types, that's a batting average of .750 -- astronomical. So why not spend it all, before you leave?
In fact...in fact...what if he'd decided that getting the country to focus on the enormous costs associated with amnesty from a Social Security/Medicaid standpoint was the best way to move the ball forward on reforming those behemoth social programs?
In fact, what if he'd decided that forcing Congress's hand on immigration would result in large, large numbers of voters getting pissed about the whole damn bunch in Washington, cleaning House (so to speak) in '08? Speaking as a movement conservative, it wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit if Hagel, Lugar, McCain, Specter, Hatch...all of these entrenched, sometime Republicans, got the boot next fall. Shake the place up a bit, eh? Term limits without the legislation, eh? A massive forest fire, to clear the way for the Next Generation of new growth, eh?
In fact, what if he'd decided to exit with an approval rating so low that ANY Republican presidential candidate who gets the nomination could bill himself as The Candidate For Change, and have the latitude to separate himself from the past administration, thereby improving his chances? Clinton left office with some gargantuan poll numbers -- and did Gore benefit?
Lastly, in fact, what if he'd decided to pick this issue as the biggest, best way to show that The Federal Government isn't really capable of that much, at least on this issue, and get people thinking about individual state solutions instead? I mean, I don't hear that many people in Montana complaining about the immigration problem. Shouldn't the southern border states be dealing with this, first and foremost? Isn't it about time that people started looking somewhere else than freakin' Washington, DC for the answers to all of their freakin' problems?
And here again, I'm sure The Dope Crowd, The Sixties Movement, would have a major issue with this approach. So cynical. So Machiavellian. So manipulative. And I would say to them: Sober up, and grow up too, while you're at it. You do stuff like this every freakin' DAY. Like, your husband wants to buy a new sports car. Instead of saying no, flat no, you go along at first...knowing inwardly that the whole purchase process will get him to focus on finances, which he doesn't get involved with otherwise, and then he'll see how he needs to get a raise in order to make the nut on the car...which he does. Is that cynical? Is that Machiavellian? Is that manipulative?
No, it's life. So, like, get one.
Again I say: History will prove out the good and great success that was the George W. Bush administration. He knew what he was doing, and he did it right. Book it. Out.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
The Greatest Commandments
Well, The Malaise deepens...if you believe the latest poll/results from Gallup: Practically 9 out of 10 surveyed thinks the current Congress bites the big one.
Sure, as a movement conservative, Otto could gleefully point to that result and start chucking it in the face of everyone I know who rejoiced when the Demmies gained control last November. They in turn, probably, would heave back Dubya's current poll numbers. Heave, splat, heave, splat, on and on we go...
Some other point needs to be made, I think. And that has to do with gratitude. Or, obviously, the screaming lack thereof.
For I abso-freakin'-lutely guarantee you that some percentage, and quite possibly a large percentage, of those folks polled by Mr. Gallup are on government assistance of some sort. It could be Social Security. It could be Medicare, or Medicaid. It could be AFDC, or Head Start, or food stamps. It could be any number of the other social programs administered to the tune of billions, tens of billions per year.
You would think that the recepients of these payments would have some level or degree of thankfulness, of gratitude, for this assistance. Based on this poll, you would be wrong. Very wrong.
And so Otto is compelled to ask: What's up with that?
We are all base creatures, is my take on things. Base and extremely selfish. If we get a slice of cake, we start looking at the whole damn thing, the rest of it, as being ours too. Assuming it's good cake. If we get ourselves a house, invariably we start thinking about bigger houses. Or multiple houses. I'm pleading guilty straightaway on this. I'm definitely not immune.
Some on my side of the political aisle have said and are saying that Dubya isn't doing a good enough job -- or, like, isn't doing it AT ALL -- communicating the good times we're currently enjoying. Take interest rates. Everybody all freaked out now that they've gone above 6 percent. Anybody want to take a guess what they were back in 1979-81? I mean give me a freakin' BREAK here. There's high interest rates, and then there's HIGH interest rates. So maybe people forget the really bad times.
I'd be very tempted to take a different tack, and pull a stunt that is generally acknowledged as political suicide: Give the voters a little tongue lashing. Give 'em some Bobby Knight. Tell 'em in no uncertain terms what a bunch of spoiled babies they've turned into.
But the best way out of this, The Current Malaise, is the best way out of any and every bad situation you face in your life. Religion. Jesus Christ, specifically.
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandments were, what was his answer? Loving God, with all your heart and soul and might; and...loving your neighbor as yourself.
What does that have to do with anything?
Here's my short answer.
Loving God means giving him thanks and praise and glory for all of the good and great things He's done for us. In other words, it means GRATITUDE. Isn't that what worship is?
Loving your neighbor means helping out, cooperating, and just basically downplaying their idiosyncracies, which all of us have.
When we're grateful, we're more likely to be happy with what we have.
When we cooperate, we get along better and are happier about the place where we are.
Would YOU want to be a Senator or Representative right now? Hundreds of people calling or writing or e-mailing you every day, asking or even demanding that you fix their problems...and then turning around and STILL calling you a bum when some pollster contacts them?
The problem is not with Congress. The problem is US. We, the people. We are the problem. Christ is the solution. Book it.
Sure, as a movement conservative, Otto could gleefully point to that result and start chucking it in the face of everyone I know who rejoiced when the Demmies gained control last November. They in turn, probably, would heave back Dubya's current poll numbers. Heave, splat, heave, splat, on and on we go...
Some other point needs to be made, I think. And that has to do with gratitude. Or, obviously, the screaming lack thereof.
For I abso-freakin'-lutely guarantee you that some percentage, and quite possibly a large percentage, of those folks polled by Mr. Gallup are on government assistance of some sort. It could be Social Security. It could be Medicare, or Medicaid. It could be AFDC, or Head Start, or food stamps. It could be any number of the other social programs administered to the tune of billions, tens of billions per year.
You would think that the recepients of these payments would have some level or degree of thankfulness, of gratitude, for this assistance. Based on this poll, you would be wrong. Very wrong.
And so Otto is compelled to ask: What's up with that?
We are all base creatures, is my take on things. Base and extremely selfish. If we get a slice of cake, we start looking at the whole damn thing, the rest of it, as being ours too. Assuming it's good cake. If we get ourselves a house, invariably we start thinking about bigger houses. Or multiple houses. I'm pleading guilty straightaway on this. I'm definitely not immune.
Some on my side of the political aisle have said and are saying that Dubya isn't doing a good enough job -- or, like, isn't doing it AT ALL -- communicating the good times we're currently enjoying. Take interest rates. Everybody all freaked out now that they've gone above 6 percent. Anybody want to take a guess what they were back in 1979-81? I mean give me a freakin' BREAK here. There's high interest rates, and then there's HIGH interest rates. So maybe people forget the really bad times.
I'd be very tempted to take a different tack, and pull a stunt that is generally acknowledged as political suicide: Give the voters a little tongue lashing. Give 'em some Bobby Knight. Tell 'em in no uncertain terms what a bunch of spoiled babies they've turned into.
But the best way out of this, The Current Malaise, is the best way out of any and every bad situation you face in your life. Religion. Jesus Christ, specifically.
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandments were, what was his answer? Loving God, with all your heart and soul and might; and...loving your neighbor as yourself.
What does that have to do with anything?
Here's my short answer.
Loving God means giving him thanks and praise and glory for all of the good and great things He's done for us. In other words, it means GRATITUDE. Isn't that what worship is?
Loving your neighbor means helping out, cooperating, and just basically downplaying their idiosyncracies, which all of us have.
When we're grateful, we're more likely to be happy with what we have.
When we cooperate, we get along better and are happier about the place where we are.
Would YOU want to be a Senator or Representative right now? Hundreds of people calling or writing or e-mailing you every day, asking or even demanding that you fix their problems...and then turning around and STILL calling you a bum when some pollster contacts them?
The problem is not with Congress. The problem is US. We, the people. We are the problem. Christ is the solution. Book it.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
A Stacked Bob Vila
So today it is time to pay tribute to Otto's Amazing Wife.
Amazing Wife is amazing on many levels, but I am compelled to log her amazingness because of the way she has stepped up her game lately around the house.
Here are the things she accomplished yesterday:
-- Finished the painting, caulking, and woodworking on the downstairs basement
-- Performed drywall repair on the stairway leading to the basement
-- Repaired the fence gate in the back yard
-- Painted a lamp that Daughter will be taking to her apartment in Morgantown this fall
Here are the things she accomplished the day before yesterday:
-- Repaired the sliding-glass door in the basement
-- Repaired the handrail in the stairway leading to the basement
If I were a single man, but still living in our present abode...well, I would not have had the first clue how to go about doing ANY of the above. Any of it. I would have looked at these things, day after day, in their sorry and broken conditions, and tried to ignore them. Except when I had to deal with them. Which, in some cases (like the sliding-glass door) would have been nearly every day. You needed the strength of The Incredible Hulk to move that door after it got busted -- hoisting and tugging and straining, cursing all the while -- and while the blow-it-off part of the male brain kept saying "It's no big deal" the other, bigger part, the one that deals with problem-solving and orderliness and that stuff, was having a Quiet Riot. Remember George Bailey's face, every time that doo-dad would pop off the top of the staircase thingy? Anger and despair.
So when God arranged to have my Amazing Wife and I meet, and then marry later (after I kept trying to screw up the plan), He knew that I had no skeels in the home improvement department. Not only no skeels, but no interest in developing any skeels. He also knew that my wife was about exactly the same way vis a vis cooking. He brought us together so we could fill each other's deficiencies. He is a great God in that way, and many others.
My Amazing Wife finds fulfillment in home improvement projects. I mean in actually DOING home improvement projects. Here are the two items she asked for and received three weeks ago, on her 52nd birthday:
A compound miter saw and a circular saw. That is what my Amazing Wife wanted for her birthday.
Let it not or ever be said that Amazing Wife's talents are limited to home improvement alone. No, verily, for she has made about half a dozen quilts, 50 birdhouses, 10 afghans, 13 sets of custom pillowcases, and a whole bunch of other stuff just in 2007. She has also lost 24 pounds in the past year and looks about as shapely as she did when I first laid eyes on her. She is a stacked Bob Vila, a Martha Stewart with a clean record, an HGTV Hero...
AND...she puts up with me. My moods, my sometimes potty mouth, my former drinking, my unhealthy habits, and all the other stuff that Otto is not so proud of. She puts up with it, bucks me up, loves me well and greatly, and laughs at my jokes. She IS The Original, OldSkool, Champions Tour Amazing Wife Of All Time. I am very blessed to be able to share my life with her. Selah.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Congratulations, I'm Sorry
The King had linked to a StrategyPage article yesterday, which I read this morning, which caused me to browse the site a bit more, and I wind up seeing this:
June 9, 2007: The government has backed away from a plan to legalize prostitution. A cleric has advocated using an old Shia custom of "temporary marriage" which, in effect, made prostitution, or shacking up, legal. Of course, you needed a cooperative cleric to sign off on the deal. This usually required a fee. The proposal was meant to placate the many impoverished young Iranian men who cannot afford to get married, and are rather restless as a result. There is already a lot of prostitution, and the new proposal was seen as another ploy by the corrupt clerics to extract more money from the people, in this case, horny men. As a result, the government has backed away from the proposal. Many ultra-conservative clerics want to maintain the ban on prostitution, and the clerics running terrorism operations don't want illicit sex interfering with the recruiting of suicide bombers (who are assured of 72 willing girls in the after life).
That's about it, eh? The human condition, neatly summed up in less than 150 words. Guys who want chicks, but can't get chicks because they have no kwon, and what in the H are we gonna do about that? The gubment as usual is helpless, and the church should help but it's been corrupted by power-lust...and what we're left with is the same old, same old...I caint GIT no, I caint GIT no...
It's comforting to Otto -- and not that surprising, either -- that life in the good ol' People's Republic of Iran is about the same as everywhere else. I think that simple factoid gets lost on a lotta folks. I hear them explaining to We, The Supposedly Ignorant that these are different CULTURES, you see, with different MORES and different PRACTICES and different PARADIGMS, and how dare we attempt to apply our own particular TEMPLATE on them. The key is UNDERSTANDING, you see, and the path to that is through DIALOGUE, you see, and we pursue war and violence instead and that's so WRONG, you see...
And I reply: There's nothing to see here. Nothing new under the sun. Guys want to bust a nut. Don't overthink this.
You can blather on about "oversimplification" all you want, but The Real Deal in all these shitehole parts of the world is about guys and kwon and chicks. To make kwon, you need a job. The social and governmental structures in places like Iran and the Sudan are absolutely incapable of providing them. So you have large numbers of idle males, slogging around and fully aware of their worthlessness, but still wanting chicks...who are fully second-class citizens, flying economy and wanting nothing more than a guy with some kwon who can provide a little comfort, and a dwelling, and kids, and all or most of the basic Good Things in life...but there are no jobs and no kwon...and that's when guys turn to violence and buy into about ANY harebrained set of ideas...
Bitch about the downsides of capitalism all you want, but the fact remains that it employs large, LARGE numbers of males who would otherwise act out violently.
The greeting of capitalism to a male, all males, is: Grab a shovel, get to work, and let's make some kwon.
The greeting of all other socio-economic models, including the weird sort of feudalistic cult that is the Present Day Arab Middle East is: Congratulations, I'm sorry. We have nothing for you except hate and loathing. Get used to it.
June 9, 2007: The government has backed away from a plan to legalize prostitution. A cleric has advocated using an old Shia custom of "temporary marriage" which, in effect, made prostitution, or shacking up, legal. Of course, you needed a cooperative cleric to sign off on the deal. This usually required a fee. The proposal was meant to placate the many impoverished young Iranian men who cannot afford to get married, and are rather restless as a result. There is already a lot of prostitution, and the new proposal was seen as another ploy by the corrupt clerics to extract more money from the people, in this case, horny men. As a result, the government has backed away from the proposal. Many ultra-conservative clerics want to maintain the ban on prostitution, and the clerics running terrorism operations don't want illicit sex interfering with the recruiting of suicide bombers (who are assured of 72 willing girls in the after life).
That's about it, eh? The human condition, neatly summed up in less than 150 words. Guys who want chicks, but can't get chicks because they have no kwon, and what in the H are we gonna do about that? The gubment as usual is helpless, and the church should help but it's been corrupted by power-lust...and what we're left with is the same old, same old...I caint GIT no, I caint GIT no...
It's comforting to Otto -- and not that surprising, either -- that life in the good ol' People's Republic of Iran is about the same as everywhere else. I think that simple factoid gets lost on a lotta folks. I hear them explaining to We, The Supposedly Ignorant that these are different CULTURES, you see, with different MORES and different PRACTICES and different PARADIGMS, and how dare we attempt to apply our own particular TEMPLATE on them. The key is UNDERSTANDING, you see, and the path to that is through DIALOGUE, you see, and we pursue war and violence instead and that's so WRONG, you see...
And I reply: There's nothing to see here. Nothing new under the sun. Guys want to bust a nut. Don't overthink this.
You can blather on about "oversimplification" all you want, but The Real Deal in all these shitehole parts of the world is about guys and kwon and chicks. To make kwon, you need a job. The social and governmental structures in places like Iran and the Sudan are absolutely incapable of providing them. So you have large numbers of idle males, slogging around and fully aware of their worthlessness, but still wanting chicks...who are fully second-class citizens, flying economy and wanting nothing more than a guy with some kwon who can provide a little comfort, and a dwelling, and kids, and all or most of the basic Good Things in life...but there are no jobs and no kwon...and that's when guys turn to violence and buy into about ANY harebrained set of ideas...
Bitch about the downsides of capitalism all you want, but the fact remains that it employs large, LARGE numbers of males who would otherwise act out violently.
The greeting of capitalism to a male, all males, is: Grab a shovel, get to work, and let's make some kwon.
The greeting of all other socio-economic models, including the weird sort of feudalistic cult that is the Present Day Arab Middle East is: Congratulations, I'm sorry. We have nothing for you except hate and loathing. Get used to it.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Apply the Gitmo test
The latest Uniquely American Spectacle, the continuing manic obsession over all things celebrity, is of course Paris Hilton's forced return to the pokey. In and of itself, it's a sneeze droplet or small speck of dust on the radar of your life and Otto's. But the modern-day Left has chosen to step in -- again? yes, AGAIN -- and try to politicize it, and my Anger Meter spiked while reading the morning 'net news, and it's time to counterweigh those bastards.
As a short aside: I mean, is there ANYTHING that these people won't try to turn into The Next Great Struggle? I'm feeling a dump coming on here soon; is that in danger of being politicized? Yes, Otto, it already has -- ever heard of the enviro-toilet?
So we begin...with the old reliable vane, The New York Times:
The Most Right Highest Honorable Reverend Al Sharpton: "...decried Ms. Hilton’s release as an example of “double standards,” saying consideration was given to a pampered rich girl that would never have been accorded an average inmate."
The Breck Girl: "Even the presidential candidate John Edwards found himself drawn into the debate. When asked about Ms. Hilton’s release on Thursday he said, ''Without regard to Paris Hilton, we have two Americas and I think what’s important is, it’s obvious that the problem exists.”
And from a diarist on The Daily Kos: "There's a lesson to be learned from what is going on with Paris Hilton: Americans love it when the rich and powerful get served."
Rich. powerful. Two Americas. The same old tired shite, trotted out once again.
For starters, the Constitution guarantees you a day in court but it does not say a blessed thing about your right to have a five thousand dollar an hour defense attorney working your case. Why should it? In the same way, no one who is without health care coverage can or should expect their treatment from the Mayo Clinic or whatever. One of the reasons you work hard to get ahead and make more kwon is so that you can avail yourself of these high-end services if the situation ever arises. The best legal and medical help...for free? That's just a microwaved plate of leftover Communism, pure and simple.
So here's my suggestion, to be used on anyone you come into contact with the next couple of days who spouts off about Paris Hilton and the rich and the powerful and etc etc. Ask the person this question:
Do you think the United States is justified in holding suspected terrorists down at Guantanamo?
If the person answers Yes, then at least there's some consistency and stick-togetheredness in his/her thinking. A Law And Order point of view. Because that's the bottom-line issue here -- the safety of the community and our country. That's why Paris went to the pokey. That's why we punish people by using jail time. We make it safer for the law-abiding by getting and keeping the law-breaking off the streets, and at the same time send a message that further bad behaviors will lead to more and longer jail. It's safety, pure and simple.
But if the person answers No, then ask him/her to explain how we as a community and country are made safer by keeping Paris Hilton in jail and letting the Gitmo bunch free.
Otto's suspicion is that for this latter group, it's not about safety so much as retribution. Punish the rich and powerful. Punish America, even. It's a sickness of the mind that I'll be damned if I can explain...except to say that these people are just plain Haters.
So apply the Gitmo test. Identify the deranged. It'll help you safety-wise.
As a short aside: I mean, is there ANYTHING that these people won't try to turn into The Next Great Struggle? I'm feeling a dump coming on here soon; is that in danger of being politicized? Yes, Otto, it already has -- ever heard of the enviro-toilet?
So we begin...with the old reliable vane, The New York Times:
The Most Right Highest Honorable Reverend Al Sharpton: "...decried Ms. Hilton’s release as an example of “double standards,” saying consideration was given to a pampered rich girl that would never have been accorded an average inmate."
The Breck Girl: "Even the presidential candidate John Edwards found himself drawn into the debate. When asked about Ms. Hilton’s release on Thursday he said, ''Without regard to Paris Hilton, we have two Americas and I think what’s important is, it’s obvious that the problem exists.”
And from a diarist on The Daily Kos: "There's a lesson to be learned from what is going on with Paris Hilton: Americans love it when the rich and powerful get served."
Rich. powerful. Two Americas. The same old tired shite, trotted out once again.
For starters, the Constitution guarantees you a day in court but it does not say a blessed thing about your right to have a five thousand dollar an hour defense attorney working your case. Why should it? In the same way, no one who is without health care coverage can or should expect their treatment from the Mayo Clinic or whatever. One of the reasons you work hard to get ahead and make more kwon is so that you can avail yourself of these high-end services if the situation ever arises. The best legal and medical help...for free? That's just a microwaved plate of leftover Communism, pure and simple.
So here's my suggestion, to be used on anyone you come into contact with the next couple of days who spouts off about Paris Hilton and the rich and the powerful and etc etc. Ask the person this question:
Do you think the United States is justified in holding suspected terrorists down at Guantanamo?
If the person answers Yes, then at least there's some consistency and stick-togetheredness in his/her thinking. A Law And Order point of view. Because that's the bottom-line issue here -- the safety of the community and our country. That's why Paris went to the pokey. That's why we punish people by using jail time. We make it safer for the law-abiding by getting and keeping the law-breaking off the streets, and at the same time send a message that further bad behaviors will lead to more and longer jail. It's safety, pure and simple.
But if the person answers No, then ask him/her to explain how we as a community and country are made safer by keeping Paris Hilton in jail and letting the Gitmo bunch free.
Otto's suspicion is that for this latter group, it's not about safety so much as retribution. Punish the rich and powerful. Punish America, even. It's a sickness of the mind that I'll be damned if I can explain...except to say that these people are just plain Haters.
So apply the Gitmo test. Identify the deranged. It'll help you safety-wise.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Back to the well...
The wife and I went up to Carlisle, PA last Saturday for the annual All Ford event. I entered Luci in the show field, not because I thought she had a snowball's chance of winning anything but because I'd heard parking around the fairgrounds was absolutely brutal, ten bucks to go off-roadin' onto somebody's front lawn and then a half mile trek to the gate, stuff like that. For a show field price of forty-five beans, on-site parking and two admissions to The Show seemed a good choice. It was.
Boy were there some money Ponies in attendance! The 2005-07 era was best represented, by about a three to one margin, so we spent a good half hour going up and down the rows of The Greatest Generation of Mustangs. I cannot get words to completely convey how deep my affection and love is for these cars. All I have to do is see one, out on the road, and I smile. I still don't know what exactly has gotten into me.
Met one of the guys I've corresponded with on the AllFordMustangs forum, who has what I think is THE premier tricked-out '05 V6 in the whole country. Good times. Then spent about another half hour at the K.A.R. tent talking with owner George Waydos...an Ohio native, just like my wife, a believer, and lover of all things Pony. I told him I'd be buying one his cars someday. A '67 or a '70. His prices are so reasonable, I can't refuse. We had terrific conversation. Great times.
Saw some absolutely gorgeous Old School Stangers, one of which is below. Man, if the '07 Shelbys get down close to sticker, I'm gonna be tempted to get one of those too...
I just love these cars. Just love 'em. They make my heart sing. They make everything groovy.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
The hope that springs eternal...
Just finished submitting my lottery entry for next year's Ryder Cup, at Nicklaus's Valhalla course in Louisville, KY, and am already starting to feel the first pangs of Buyer's Remorse. One Large, One G, for two tickets, and then probably about another Two Large for a hotel for that week (unless we find something like a Sleep Inn in Hazard), plus meals and accoutrements, and it'll be the price of a freakin' Vortech supercharger...to likely witness the good ol' U S of A getting its arses handed to it, once again, by the Euros.
Jack fell in love with these "collection areas" around the greens, which are now All The Rage amongst the high-end daily fee courses. An example is above.
The deal is, with these tricked-up things: If you don't place your approach just so...the ball trickles off into the collection area, the almost-short stuff, where...you putt, you chip, you lob, you dissect the ball with a sand wedge, you take out your freakin' three wood and hit it like you were freakin' three years old or whatever...and time after time, the Euros will find a way to hit these shots stiff while our guys stare helplessly at a golf ball rolling back towards them. And I'll be standing there, probably in a cold driving rain, thinking, "I could have supercharged Dixi, and instead I chose THIS? Kelly, you f---ing moron..."
And etc...
In not too much longer, a U.S. win at this event is gonna be like The Miracle On Ice, Lake Placid, 1980. I mean it will be so contra to past outcomes, so improbable, that Being There will instantly place one among The Special, The Revered...
"You were there when we won? That's effing AWESOME, man! Tell me all about it..."
And etc...
So already it's The Hope That Springs Eternal From Within The Human Breast. A sad state of affairs, to be sure -- and one you can be sure I will be writing about, beginning a year or so from now, if that freakin' lottery entry strikes gold.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
A short, sinful rant
From a Drudge lead, courtesy ABC News:
Another figure underscores the public's broad grumpiness: Seventy-three percent now say the country's off on the wrong track, the most in just over a decade.
So, if those numbers are right -- and yeah, I know, a poll from ABCCBSNBC is oftentimes about as reliable as an opinion from a 2nd grader -- but let's just say they're right, or close to...
Then that means three of every four people you meet today, at work, in the burger joint, on the golf course, at the dry cleaners, wherever...three of every four people say the United States of America is on the wrong track.
So Otto feels compelled to say, to these threes: You're outta your f---ing minds. Get some f---ing help. Now.
Subgroup A, comprising probably about 35%, are the Pure Left, The Haters Of All Things Conservative, who probably would sit on the sidelines and cheer if Radical Islam invaded American and decided their first order of business was to execute all of the Christian evangelicals. Yeah, you heard me right. They'd cheer. These people, by and large as far as I'm concerned, don't consider themselves Americans -- no, it's just living in a country that happens to be called America -- and wouldn't give a damn if certain of their neighbors started getting rounded up. Look at how many of them are actually supporting Hugo (The Boss) Chavez, even as he's in the process of strangling free speech in Venny-zuela! These people are rootless, witless wimps -- they blather incessantly about "rights" but the fact of the matter is they don't give a shite about 'em as long as they got 'em. Basically, a lot of these turdbirds are Sixties Hippy MFs, and the country will get better and better once more and more of them start dying.
Subgroup B, probably about 25%, are Republicans who think Bush has sold them down the river on immigration. I got quick news for you folks:
1) Mass deportation of illegals is just NOT GONNA F---ING HAPPEN, in this lifetime or any other. It would walk and talk and feel and smell like Adolf: The Sequel. And really...do you want our police and military tied up in making that happen, when there's so many other Clear And Present Dangers around?
2) Can one of you please tell me how much this big wall, this fence, this booby-trapped, mine-laden, whatever that you say you want the government to build on BOTH the northern and southern borders of our great land, how many dollars this is going to cost? Maybe some quick math will help you out -- according to Wikipedia, the Border Patrol is responsible for patrolling 19,000 miles of land and sea border. Let's say the land borders are half of that, or 9,500 miles. How does a million dollars a mile sound? That's what it costs to do an interstate these days, and that's just freaking concrete on the ground. A million dollars times 9,500 miles is 9-point-five Billion with a B dollars. Then, to protect these walls, we've gotta have people manning them. Ten people per mile? Shoot, the way the gubment operates, it would be more like 100 people per mile. 950,000 new federal employees? That might or might not make the nut. Figure $100K in salary and benfits per year, or another 95 billion...per year. Forget Social Security, and Medicare, and all that other stuff you want so much. We're f---ing BROKE, on this road.
3) Get honest with yourselves for a minute, too, and ask yourself if you know any recent, legal Hispanic immigrants. I do. They are about the most grateful and supportive Americans I know, besides the Occidental Indians and Asians. If we gave amnesty to every freakin' ONE of these people tomorrow, and simultaneously rounded up and deported just a THOUSAND of the most suspicious Arabs walking our streets, the country would be a damned sight safer. A damned sight.
And, Subgroup C then, the remaining 15%...these are just The Disaffected Youth, who just naturally complain. If they get a free apartment and new Mustang GT from the parents, they would still consider things "on the wrong track" if they didn't have Wii. These nummies will grow out of it...just like I did.
So all of y'all should just shut the hell up, get back to work, and show a little f---ing GRATITUDE once in a while. Is that too much to ask?
Another figure underscores the public's broad grumpiness: Seventy-three percent now say the country's off on the wrong track, the most in just over a decade.
So, if those numbers are right -- and yeah, I know, a poll from ABCCBSNBC is oftentimes about as reliable as an opinion from a 2nd grader -- but let's just say they're right, or close to...
Then that means three of every four people you meet today, at work, in the burger joint, on the golf course, at the dry cleaners, wherever...three of every four people say the United States of America is on the wrong track.
So Otto feels compelled to say, to these threes: You're outta your f---ing minds. Get some f---ing help. Now.
Subgroup A, comprising probably about 35%, are the Pure Left, The Haters Of All Things Conservative, who probably would sit on the sidelines and cheer if Radical Islam invaded American and decided their first order of business was to execute all of the Christian evangelicals. Yeah, you heard me right. They'd cheer. These people, by and large as far as I'm concerned, don't consider themselves Americans -- no, it's just living in a country that happens to be called America -- and wouldn't give a damn if certain of their neighbors started getting rounded up. Look at how many of them are actually supporting Hugo (The Boss) Chavez, even as he's in the process of strangling free speech in Venny-zuela! These people are rootless, witless wimps -- they blather incessantly about "rights" but the fact of the matter is they don't give a shite about 'em as long as they got 'em. Basically, a lot of these turdbirds are Sixties Hippy MFs, and the country will get better and better once more and more of them start dying.
Subgroup B, probably about 25%, are Republicans who think Bush has sold them down the river on immigration. I got quick news for you folks:
1) Mass deportation of illegals is just NOT GONNA F---ING HAPPEN, in this lifetime or any other. It would walk and talk and feel and smell like Adolf: The Sequel. And really...do you want our police and military tied up in making that happen, when there's so many other Clear And Present Dangers around?
2) Can one of you please tell me how much this big wall, this fence, this booby-trapped, mine-laden, whatever that you say you want the government to build on BOTH the northern and southern borders of our great land, how many dollars this is going to cost? Maybe some quick math will help you out -- according to Wikipedia, the Border Patrol is responsible for patrolling 19,000 miles of land and sea border. Let's say the land borders are half of that, or 9,500 miles. How does a million dollars a mile sound? That's what it costs to do an interstate these days, and that's just freaking concrete on the ground. A million dollars times 9,500 miles is 9-point-five Billion with a B dollars. Then, to protect these walls, we've gotta have people manning them. Ten people per mile? Shoot, the way the gubment operates, it would be more like 100 people per mile. 950,000 new federal employees? That might or might not make the nut. Figure $100K in salary and benfits per year, or another 95 billion...per year. Forget Social Security, and Medicare, and all that other stuff you want so much. We're f---ing BROKE, on this road.
3) Get honest with yourselves for a minute, too, and ask yourself if you know any recent, legal Hispanic immigrants. I do. They are about the most grateful and supportive Americans I know, besides the Occidental Indians and Asians. If we gave amnesty to every freakin' ONE of these people tomorrow, and simultaneously rounded up and deported just a THOUSAND of the most suspicious Arabs walking our streets, the country would be a damned sight safer. A damned sight.
And, Subgroup C then, the remaining 15%...these are just The Disaffected Youth, who just naturally complain. If they get a free apartment and new Mustang GT from the parents, they would still consider things "on the wrong track" if they didn't have Wii. These nummies will grow out of it...just like I did.
So all of y'all should just shut the hell up, get back to work, and show a little f---ing GRATITUDE once in a while. Is that too much to ask?
Thursday, May 31, 2007
For the record...
...so that a marker can be placed in cyberspace, forevermore...
If a pollster called me today and popped The Big Question, I would give George W. Bush a Favorable rating.
I would DEFINITELY vote for George W. Bush again, if not for the 22nd amendment.
He has acquitted himself incredibly well in this latest world war, the war on terror, the one that so many would have you believe is going so badly. Once all the dust settles, and radical Islam is defeated -- as did Reagan to the Communists, as did FDR to the Nazis, as did Washington to the British, as did Salk to polio, as did Jenner to smallpox, and on and on and on -- those with eyes to see and ears to listen will not be able to avoid the truth. The truth that We Won, They Lost, again...
He has successfully nominated two judges to the Supremos that are young (for justices) and unshakably conservative. The rewards for this effort are already bearing fruit in protection of the unborn. At this point in time, only those in Deep Denial still don't acknowledge that A Baby Is A Baby, inside or outside the womb. Technology has made it clear. The law is catching up with technology, once again...
He has presided over an economy that has been well-nigh Rocky Balboa-ish since the mess inherited from Wilhelm Jaifferson Clintoine, and Enron/Worldcom, and 9/11, and Katrina. Bloodied, puffy-eyed, and suddenly off the ropes with startling aggression and forward movement. Larry Kudlow is right: This is The Greatest Story Never Told, and here again, time passages will put these incredible times into their proper light. People forget about what it was like in the late '70s. I don't. I'd just purchased my first car. Times sucked. And I had a guaranteed job back then! Forget and repeat, people, forget and repeat...
He has reminded us all what the White House looks like when it's inhabited by adults.
He has reminded us all what a redeemed, believing Christian Presidency looks like. Sure, the "scandals" have been laughably lame; if Al Gonzalez's firing of incompetent/partisan lawyers is all you got, MSM, you got some weak beer. But I keep reading in the conservative rags these days about Bush's "problem" in being too loyal to the people he hires. Imagine that. As if two-faced, back-stabbing, tell-all memoir writing whoredom was Business As Usual in our nation's capital. Imagine that...
George W. Bush doesn't like Washington. You know what? Neither do I. Bully for George W. Bush. The haters will fade away, melting themselves with rage. The legacy and achievements of the 43rd President will stand, and not fade away. We win. They lose.
Again.
If a pollster called me today and popped The Big Question, I would give George W. Bush a Favorable rating.
I would DEFINITELY vote for George W. Bush again, if not for the 22nd amendment.
He has acquitted himself incredibly well in this latest world war, the war on terror, the one that so many would have you believe is going so badly. Once all the dust settles, and radical Islam is defeated -- as did Reagan to the Communists, as did FDR to the Nazis, as did Washington to the British, as did Salk to polio, as did Jenner to smallpox, and on and on and on -- those with eyes to see and ears to listen will not be able to avoid the truth. The truth that We Won, They Lost, again...
He has successfully nominated two judges to the Supremos that are young (for justices) and unshakably conservative. The rewards for this effort are already bearing fruit in protection of the unborn. At this point in time, only those in Deep Denial still don't acknowledge that A Baby Is A Baby, inside or outside the womb. Technology has made it clear. The law is catching up with technology, once again...
He has presided over an economy that has been well-nigh Rocky Balboa-ish since the mess inherited from Wilhelm Jaifferson Clintoine, and Enron/Worldcom, and 9/11, and Katrina. Bloodied, puffy-eyed, and suddenly off the ropes with startling aggression and forward movement. Larry Kudlow is right: This is The Greatest Story Never Told, and here again, time passages will put these incredible times into their proper light. People forget about what it was like in the late '70s. I don't. I'd just purchased my first car. Times sucked. And I had a guaranteed job back then! Forget and repeat, people, forget and repeat...
He has reminded us all what the White House looks like when it's inhabited by adults.
He has reminded us all what a redeemed, believing Christian Presidency looks like. Sure, the "scandals" have been laughably lame; if Al Gonzalez's firing of incompetent/partisan lawyers is all you got, MSM, you got some weak beer. But I keep reading in the conservative rags these days about Bush's "problem" in being too loyal to the people he hires. Imagine that. As if two-faced, back-stabbing, tell-all memoir writing whoredom was Business As Usual in our nation's capital. Imagine that...
George W. Bush doesn't like Washington. You know what? Neither do I. Bully for George W. Bush. The haters will fade away, melting themselves with rage. The legacy and achievements of the 43rd President will stand, and not fade away. We win. They lose.
Again.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Power Sans Merit
Reading about the latest internet death threat vid from Adam Gadahn, the American Taliban 2 (he's actually A.Q., but hey, what's the real diff?), as well as some background info courtesy of LA's CityBeat, Otto is once again reminded of the basic profile of a terrorist. "Loser" would be a bit harsh, but not too far off the mark.
You can theorize and psychoanalyze this kind of stuff all day, but in the end it comes down to One Main Thing: Getting chicks. With the benefit of almost fifty years' thinking on this subject, I will propose that there are three (3) basic ways to get chicks:
1) Be incredibly good looking. Jude Law. Tom Selleck. Early Mel Gibson. Rugged jaw. Heart-melting smile. Soulful eyes. This doesn't happen too often, so your chances here are pretty slim.
2) Be good. Sure, it may not win the hand of the Angelina Jolies and Keira Knightleys of the world, but the average chick does place large stock in common decency and kindness in a guy. The problem with this approach is that you typically wind up being in a relief pitcher role, sitting on the bench for long long innings, and are only called into the game after the starting pitcher (See numbers 1 and 3) messes up big-time. It's a long wait, and some can't wait that long. So then, finally, there's...
3) Obtain power. This can occur by getting rich, or once in a great while by being lucky enough to be born into it. But there is another way...yes, a way that's not been talked about much by anybody in The Chattering Class in this present day and age. That way is to become a Muslim.
Why? Because the whole system is geared towards guys. Need proof? Just two words will make the nut: Clitoral circumcision.
The typical way to get rich is to work hard, in school and in your job. No matter how many times the mindless Left wants to hollah that The Game Is Rigged, working hard is still the surest way to bucks. Merit leads to bucks, which lead to power.
But if you don't want to go that route, if the whole grind-it-out approach leaves you cold, then radical Muslim would surely be an easier way to power. Power sans merit.
Now you got your chicks. What could be sweeter?
You can theorize and psychoanalyze this kind of stuff all day, but in the end it comes down to One Main Thing: Getting chicks. With the benefit of almost fifty years' thinking on this subject, I will propose that there are three (3) basic ways to get chicks:
1) Be incredibly good looking. Jude Law. Tom Selleck. Early Mel Gibson. Rugged jaw. Heart-melting smile. Soulful eyes. This doesn't happen too often, so your chances here are pretty slim.
2) Be good. Sure, it may not win the hand of the Angelina Jolies and Keira Knightleys of the world, but the average chick does place large stock in common decency and kindness in a guy. The problem with this approach is that you typically wind up being in a relief pitcher role, sitting on the bench for long long innings, and are only called into the game after the starting pitcher (See numbers 1 and 3) messes up big-time. It's a long wait, and some can't wait that long. So then, finally, there's...
3) Obtain power. This can occur by getting rich, or once in a great while by being lucky enough to be born into it. But there is another way...yes, a way that's not been talked about much by anybody in The Chattering Class in this present day and age. That way is to become a Muslim.
Why? Because the whole system is geared towards guys. Need proof? Just two words will make the nut: Clitoral circumcision.
The typical way to get rich is to work hard, in school and in your job. No matter how many times the mindless Left wants to hollah that The Game Is Rigged, working hard is still the surest way to bucks. Merit leads to bucks, which lead to power.
But if you don't want to go that route, if the whole grind-it-out approach leaves you cold, then radical Muslim would surely be an easier way to power. Power sans merit.
Now you got your chicks. What could be sweeter?
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Why Hillary Will Win, Part 1
Yeah, I can't help it...way too wired on polly-tiks to write about Mustangs all the time...
Between now and, let's say, next March -- the way our primary system is going, with dates continually being changed to earlier and earlier in the year...imagine a world where like 8 states will have their Prez primaries on January 2nd or something -- I may post one, or ten, or a hundred and thirty seven entries on why Hillary Clinton will win the Demmie nomination for President. I have already bet Uncle Art 50 dollars on this, last September, and while I'll never pursue the collection of the money, the bragging rights quotient will be huge. He's a Truman Democrat, a populist, who ranches out in Kalispell, MT, and fashions himself the REAL voice of the Democratic party.
We stood their, mano a mano in a friendly way, as he declared to me there was NO WAY The Hill was gonna come outta the primary season on top.
These numbers, though, pretty much doom Art.
It may be true that what you view as the most reliable poll is the one that comes closest to validating your own set of beliefs about The Way Things Are. So forgive any personal bias there. But one can't help but looking at those Party ID numbers by gender, ESPECIALLY in the Women, Age 45 and up groups. I mean the Demmie gap is just huge.
And when it comes down to a woman vs. anybody else, be he black or white or red or straight or gay or big hair or no hair or actor or whatever else you can come up with...women are going to vote for the woman. That is a STONE LOCK.
I have a perfectly perfect vision of who those women are. I see 'em all the time out here in the People's Republic. They don't color their hair -- it goes gray, and they leave it that way -- you hardly see 'em with a man in the car at all, and they ALWAYS have at least one bumper sticker of some lefty nugget like:
Bush Rapes Our Mother, Rapes You, and Your Children Too -- Torture And Kill Bush!
Oh, and they're always frowning.
You cannot win against these people, Uncle Art. Hillary is why they freakin' breathe, why they get out of bed each morning. They are monomaniacal. And they will NOT vote for Barack. Sorry, Art.
Between now and, let's say, next March -- the way our primary system is going, with dates continually being changed to earlier and earlier in the year...imagine a world where like 8 states will have their Prez primaries on January 2nd or something -- I may post one, or ten, or a hundred and thirty seven entries on why Hillary Clinton will win the Demmie nomination for President. I have already bet Uncle Art 50 dollars on this, last September, and while I'll never pursue the collection of the money, the bragging rights quotient will be huge. He's a Truman Democrat, a populist, who ranches out in Kalispell, MT, and fashions himself the REAL voice of the Democratic party.
We stood their, mano a mano in a friendly way, as he declared to me there was NO WAY The Hill was gonna come outta the primary season on top.
These numbers, though, pretty much doom Art.
It may be true that what you view as the most reliable poll is the one that comes closest to validating your own set of beliefs about The Way Things Are. So forgive any personal bias there. But one can't help but looking at those Party ID numbers by gender, ESPECIALLY in the Women, Age 45 and up groups. I mean the Demmie gap is just huge.
And when it comes down to a woman vs. anybody else, be he black or white or red or straight or gay or big hair or no hair or actor or whatever else you can come up with...women are going to vote for the woman. That is a STONE LOCK.
I have a perfectly perfect vision of who those women are. I see 'em all the time out here in the People's Republic. They don't color their hair -- it goes gray, and they leave it that way -- you hardly see 'em with a man in the car at all, and they ALWAYS have at least one bumper sticker of some lefty nugget like:
Bush Rapes Our Mother, Rapes You, and Your Children Too -- Torture And Kill Bush!
Oh, and they're always frowning.
You cannot win against these people, Uncle Art. Hillary is why they freakin' breathe, why they get out of bed each morning. They are monomaniacal. And they will NOT vote for Barack. Sorry, Art.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Look Ma, No Modem!
And so the incredible continues...
I am composing this blog from our cabin in Double-You-Vee. Minus modem.
It's unbelievable, really.
Left work Friday afternoon and came straight up -- which meant I had my work computer, a laptop, as part of the luggage. That computer has a wireless card. I'd experimented a couple of times with WiFi, pretty much unsuccessfully, 'cause I just don't know how to work the dang thing. What signals are available? How do you find them? What secret decoder ring do you need to get in? These things are beyond my current understanding.
So last night, semi-bored, I just cracked the laptop open, hit IE and typed in the Google URL. And the thing came up!
I have little idea how. I have NO idea where, as in where this signal is originating from. It just works.
Unbelievable.
It was 1998 when my brother and cousin and I were in a minivan, traveling from MPLS to North Dakota for my grandma's funeral, and Crazy Cuz Harry whipped out his laptop to show us some of the crazy vid clips he'd downloaded. That was only 9 years ago, and I still remember those moments very clearly, because it seemed like a miracle. Road trips in my early years were AM radio (maybe, it there were any stations in the area), windows down for cooling, and four boys in the back seat of the station wagon. And thirty years later, it was AC with controls that let you hit the cabin temperature to the degree, captain's chairs front and middle, and freakin' Ashley Judd at the Academy Awards.
And now it's only 7 years after that, and I'm sitting here connected to the Web with no visible means of support.
People are always gettin' all down about stuff. Buck up, folks. These are incredible, cutting edge times we live in. I'm gonna go hit the AllFordMustangs site.
I am composing this blog from our cabin in Double-You-Vee. Minus modem.
It's unbelievable, really.
Left work Friday afternoon and came straight up -- which meant I had my work computer, a laptop, as part of the luggage. That computer has a wireless card. I'd experimented a couple of times with WiFi, pretty much unsuccessfully, 'cause I just don't know how to work the dang thing. What signals are available? How do you find them? What secret decoder ring do you need to get in? These things are beyond my current understanding.
So last night, semi-bored, I just cracked the laptop open, hit IE and typed in the Google URL. And the thing came up!
I have little idea how. I have NO idea where, as in where this signal is originating from. It just works.
Unbelievable.
It was 1998 when my brother and cousin and I were in a minivan, traveling from MPLS to North Dakota for my grandma's funeral, and Crazy Cuz Harry whipped out his laptop to show us some of the crazy vid clips he'd downloaded. That was only 9 years ago, and I still remember those moments very clearly, because it seemed like a miracle. Road trips in my early years were AM radio (maybe, it there were any stations in the area), windows down for cooling, and four boys in the back seat of the station wagon. And thirty years later, it was AC with controls that let you hit the cabin temperature to the degree, captain's chairs front and middle, and freakin' Ashley Judd at the Academy Awards.
And now it's only 7 years after that, and I'm sitting here connected to the Web with no visible means of support.
People are always gettin' all down about stuff. Buck up, folks. These are incredible, cutting edge times we live in. I'm gonna go hit the AllFordMustangs site.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Getting blown
The ne plus ultra, the mega mother, the big cheese, the shite, the be-all-end-all, of major horsepower gains in automobiles always comes down to two little things: air and fuel. And I very quickly learned, after falling in love with Dixi and wanting to do just about ANYTHING for her, that the Stairway To Heaven was supercharging. Or, as the boys like to say, "getting blown."
The MMR tube discussed yesterday is one in a series of incremental upgrades you can make to increase horsepower. It's the car version of Small Ball, a single here, a stolen base there, a sacrifice bunt to move the runners up...little dinky things that, taken separately, are essentially not noticeable when you park yer booty in the driver's seat. I've seen people claim they can tell or feel the difference in a 5 horsepower increase. I can't, at least not yet. So the Small Ball approach means purchasing a whole bunch of things and getting an overall additive increase -- which in The Dix's case is about 40 hp -- in bits and pieces that you probably can't even detect. It's like that summer you did all your growing...you didn't FEEL any taller, day to day, but over the course of six months it was like, damn, how'd these pants shrink so much?
The beauty of the supercharger is that you get a bathtub full of hp in one fell swoop. If I took the plunge and decided to get Dixi blown -- Danger, Will Robinson, similes and metaphors not working in concert! -- it's 80-120 hp, boom, instant butt-kicker.
For around $6,000.
Yeah, you read that right. The kits available for the V-6 are running between $3800 and $4600 right now, and they all say "10-12 hours installation." I'd have NO SHOT doing that myself -- don't have the tools, or the skeels -- so at $80 an hour, the going rate for car performance shops in the mid-Atlantic region, you're talking another grande or so. Add tax, the inevitable "few extra parts", and you're at 6K.
And when you do the math, as per previous post, on hp per dollar...you'll see that a blower ain't that great a deal either. $50 per horsepower, as compared to $40 for the MMR tube. Which argues in favor of a Small Ball approach.
The problem is...you run out of choices pretty quickly. And then you're either happy with what you've got, or you keep wanting more. More cowbell. More power.
So here's a great article about air, and the basics of getting blown. I'll do it, someday...it's inevitable...maybe when the new version of the Stanger comes out, at which point the prices for aftermarket stuff on the older models will go down. It's an illness, this modding...a terminal illness...
The MMR tube discussed yesterday is one in a series of incremental upgrades you can make to increase horsepower. It's the car version of Small Ball, a single here, a stolen base there, a sacrifice bunt to move the runners up...little dinky things that, taken separately, are essentially not noticeable when you park yer booty in the driver's seat. I've seen people claim they can tell or feel the difference in a 5 horsepower increase. I can't, at least not yet. So the Small Ball approach means purchasing a whole bunch of things and getting an overall additive increase -- which in The Dix's case is about 40 hp -- in bits and pieces that you probably can't even detect. It's like that summer you did all your growing...you didn't FEEL any taller, day to day, but over the course of six months it was like, damn, how'd these pants shrink so much?
The beauty of the supercharger is that you get a bathtub full of hp in one fell swoop. If I took the plunge and decided to get Dixi blown -- Danger, Will Robinson, similes and metaphors not working in concert! -- it's 80-120 hp, boom, instant butt-kicker.
For around $6,000.
Yeah, you read that right. The kits available for the V-6 are running between $3800 and $4600 right now, and they all say "10-12 hours installation." I'd have NO SHOT doing that myself -- don't have the tools, or the skeels -- so at $80 an hour, the going rate for car performance shops in the mid-Atlantic region, you're talking another grande or so. Add tax, the inevitable "few extra parts", and you're at 6K.
And when you do the math, as per previous post, on hp per dollar...you'll see that a blower ain't that great a deal either. $50 per horsepower, as compared to $40 for the MMR tube. Which argues in favor of a Small Ball approach.
The problem is...you run out of choices pretty quickly. And then you're either happy with what you've got, or you keep wanting more. More cowbell. More power.
So here's a great article about air, and the basics of getting blown. I'll do it, someday...it's inevitable...maybe when the new version of the Stanger comes out, at which point the prices for aftermarket stuff on the older models will go down. It's an illness, this modding...a terminal illness...
Thursday, May 24, 2007
A Mighty Wind
So I suppose I could give you a long history of the upgrades, piece by piece, item by item, and yes, bill by bill, for Dixi and Luci. I think that will come out, eventually, if I just jump into the narrative as to where we're at right now and take it from here.
Dixi has a Cold Air Intake (or, if ya wanna get hep with the car lingo junks, CAI) made by Steeda -- it was one of the first mods made, right after the JBA axleback exhaust. The CAI is a nice item, big ol' filter and a sturdy, sheet-metal type shroud with padding to boot...but it did not (and still doesn't) come with a custom intake tube to the engine. If I knew two years ago what I know today -- no, wait, that's not right -- Steeda was pretty much first out of the box with the CAI for the V6, so I would have bought it, period -- anyways, there are now several CAIs on the market, and most of them have a custom tube.
Of course, I now have Tube Envy and have been contemplating this piece from MMR:
So why buy it? "Because it looks cool," cooeth the right brain. "Because of the horsepower gains," declareth the left brain. Both brains are correct, at least for this mod and this Pony Owner. The folks at MMR are claiming "up to an additional 7 RWHP!" I could definitely do at least one blog entry on those two little words "up to" and what they REALLY mean...but not now...suffice it to say that the stock intake tube sort of looks like this:
~
except the curves are sharper, and it's just common knowledge that if air has to run through that kind of obstacle course before mating up with the gasoline and producing those happy explosions that move the pistons that turn the crankshaft that rotate the back tires that make Dixi GO...well, the air will be tired and not as enthusiastic and you'll get less power.
Or something like that.
Actually, the whole process and mechanics of the internal combustion engine is freakin' unbelievable. It's one of those things that is so far outside and above my radius of expertise, it's like magic. I'm sure I could learn it -- want to learn it, in fact, hopefully will have the time in my "golden years" to get into all that, maybe take an auto shop class or two -- but right now it's like, God bless the man or men who came up with this, because if it had been left to me we'd still be hoofin' it.
What the MMR tube purchase really comes down to, and what ALL power adder mods come down to, is price per horsepower. The tube is $170 plus probably 20 beans shipping, tax...let's say an even $200. I'm guessing this will get The Dix an additional 5 hp, max...which means $40 per hp. The good thing about this piece is that I think I can install it myself, so there will be no additional labor/shop cost. And as you will see, as the story of Pony girls Dixi and Luci continues...those costs are not trivial. Far from it.
I'll probably order this soon. Just letting the thing germinate, or ferment, or whatever, for now. I'm getting better about impulse buying on this stuff...at least a little...
"Wait for it, wait for it, give it some time..."
-- Howard Jones, "Everlasting Love"
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Heard ya missed me...
...actually, not really. There's nothing like a long period of blog inactivity to help you figure out who your readership is. In Otto's case, it was about two people.
That's fine. I didn't start this thing to get famous. And I sure as H don't have the time, right now anyways, to begin a Reynolds-like blitzkrieg of blog posts, even with this new Google-based platform that lets me e-mail a blog entry (!). (Thus giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "mailing it in.") I've advanced a bit at work, which requires more time out of my life. Daughter is now home for the summer again, from WVU -- actually, she got an internship at my place of business -- and appropriates our home computer a fair share. There are other reasons too.
But probably the main one is cars. PONY cars, to be exact. Ever since that red-letter day, a little less than two years ago, when I purchased The Dix, a great deal of my free time gets spent on cars. PONY cars, to be exact. Plural. Yeah, I got another one. An '06 GT, in Legend Lime, auto. Last September. I couldn't resist the 0%, 72 month deal that FoMoCo came out with around Labor Day.
I just love these cars to death. And because the aftermarket market, heh, for power adders and bling and effects and just about everythang, is so huge for Mustangs...there's always new stuff to look at, to think about, and to purchase.
Maybe I should just turn this into a Mustang blog. I mean, they say you should write about what you're interested in, eh? I may just do that, as I get meself back in the bloggroove.
Here's my two baby girls -- Dixi Candace and Luci Elinor. They are The Greatest Generation, of Ponies or any other vehicle ever made. Looks, price, power, performance -- they are The Greatest. I so love my Pony Girls.
And yeah, their asses are still so HOT.
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