Is It Really Getting This Bad... 2

First, it was guys stealing manhole covers for cash in Flint, Michigan... now it's this.

Elio Valerio and his friend were arrested yesterday for attempting to sell a 30-foot light pole to a scrap yard. Ok if that is not odd enough, they were arrested when the police saw the light pole attached to the top of the Chevy Asto van in front of a recycling center. Can you imagine the sight of the van in rush hour Miami traffic as it tries to get the pole to the scrap yard? Well that is exactly what the two did. Elio says that the pole has been on the side of the road for months and decided to clean the city up while making a few bucks. To ensure the safety of fellow Miami drivers the two even tied red flags from both ends of the pole.

Just in case this story was not weird enough, while police were arresting Valera, a second man, Joseph Moniz, was pushing a shopping cart into the recycle center trying to sell a manhole cover. Yes, the officers promptly arrested him also.

Hot or Not Hot

Sarah Jessica Parker

Yearly Checkup

It’s time for me to get back in shape. Last week I went for my yearly checkup and it wasn’t pretty. My blood pressure went up, my weight went up and my cholesterol also went up.

My pathetic conditioning can be traced back to the day I got hurt in February. I had done a stupid thing and hyperextend my knee and wasn’t able to keep up with my workouts. I quickly lost the enthusiasm of going to the club and spinning and a few months later I started to see the results of the inactivity in the mirror.

The worst thing about this is that my clothes are starting to fit tight and my body fat percentage is up to 16.5%

So this week I decided to get back to completing 4 cardio workouts per week. You see, it seems that as long as I get at least 4 workouts in a week that I’ll loose weight.

Friday Night Poker

We played poker yesterday night and I don’t think I made too many mistakes. Eduardo was to my right Bruce was to my left. This is just how I like it. Eduardo played his typical game. Don’t get me wrong, his game works for him, especially if you’re not used to his hyper aggressive play. He typically likes to raise the pot and watch other less experienced players call him and then he runs a few continuation bets after the flop and turn. If you have a hand then he’ll slow down and fold if necessary. Most players that play this style don’t have that off switch and will overextend the value of their hands.

Eduardo was running on a high as he took an early chip lead and knocked out several players including Bruce. He then did the unthinkable, calling a big raise in the blind against a strong hand. The flop hit his up card and he went all in. Unfortunately for him, I still had an over pair and called. Turn and river did not help him and he was out. This left me heads up with Alex who I tried to bluff him repeatedly. My slow burn came when he slow played his pocket Aces and I wound up doubling him up. I tried to chop into his chip stack but eventually fell to him.

Second game was more of the same as I let Eduardo do most of the work. He got knocked out by Tommy who went heads up against me holding over a 3 to 1 chip lead. I eventually won as I played loose against him and he took a few bad beats.

So, I’m glad that my game came back to me. It’s been MIA for several months.

Das Boot

Eduardo bought a boat a few months back. This isn’t any boat, but a 1971 Chrysler Sail Boat. She looked sea worthy, but I wasn’t aware that Chrysler made sail boats and the fact that the ship was 37 years old didn’t add to my confidence level.

Well, this weekend was to be her maiden voyage SS _________. Why do I call the boat the SS _____________ it’s because Eduardo has not given her a name yet. Sure, she has had several worthy suggestions… but none of them have stuck.

We got up here just in time to hear Eduardo explain the features of the boat to Kenward. He then proceeds to announce the crew that will be handling her on her maiden voyage. Eduardo would be Captain, Kenward would be the Chief, Bruce would be in charge of the Helm, and I would be the engineer.

He kept trying to link Star Trek reference to this voyage. One thing the Enterprise has is that she has a very competent and talented crew. Spock was possibly the smarted thing on the ship besides the computer. Chekov and Sulu could pilot the Enterprise through a worm hole, Scotty knew every bolt on the Enterprise and Kirk had the biggest stones around.

I took an informal poll of the four of us and summed up that the total number of hour sailed by the four on a big lake was zero. We were less of the Enterprise crew and more in line with the Love Boat crew. You remember them, Captain Stubbing, Gopher, Issac the Bartender, and Doc. If you remember the show, then you would recall that these four guys never actually did anything to move the ship from point A to B. Sure Stubbing would occasionally give orders, but those orders were always to someone off screen. That made more of a fitting exemplar of our prowess then Eduardo’s Star Trek. At least we had stones on our side.

As I went to sleep I was reassured by our efforts as I saw two of our crew downloading and doing some last minute cramming on sailing. Nothing worse then the Captain shouting out an order and none of us has a clue what he’s talking about.

Hot or Not Hot

Fergie

Starving Billionare

What does a $100 billion get you these days?

Location is everything.

In Zimbabwe it buys you one ITUNE download. But you best hurry as their inflation rate will change the cost of that download by the time you finish reading this short post.

You see, Zimbabwe has a 2.2 million percent inflation rate. What that mean is that if that happened to the United States a dollar today would be worth 2.2 Million dollars next year. Unfortunately that also means that a loaf of bread today also costs 2.2 million dollars next year. How about gasoline at $10 Million dollars a gallon... and you thought $4 dollars was bad. That is what hyperinflation is all about.

To further compound the problem, there is an 80% unemployment rate, mass poverty and outbreak of AIDS and HIV, this along with the rampant corruption in the government has made Zimbabwe hell on Earth.

It was not always this bad but Zimbabwe has seen an economic meltdown since it gained freedom in 1980 from the United Kingdom, when Robert Mugabe took office.

In Zimbabwe, the inflation was initially caused by the fact that the Zimbabwean dollar is not tied to a hard currency. Zimbabwe has a lack of fuel and consumer goods, which Mugabe could not control. This caused unrest in the country and it was further compounded when Mugabe started to reallocate land from of his critics to his backers. The EU along with the United States started to isolate Zimbabwe through the use of financial means. Since Zimbabwe imports all of its energy and oil is bought and sold in US dollars this made monetary sanction toward Zimbabwe highly effective.

There is no apparent end to this as Mugabe has sworn not to step down as President even though his country is in shambles. Why would he? He is one of the African continents richest men and he wants to ride this wave of power even though he is approaching 84 years old.

My message to all of you Zimbabweans…. Leave the country if you can.

Badunkadunk

I don't like to propagate a story of quasi celebrities. Quasi celebrities get notoriety only because they do outrageous things and the media covers them. They have not talent otherwise. But I found an interesting angle to write about.

I recently read that Reggie Bush (star tailback for the New Orleans Saints) told his girlfriend Kim Kardashean (Quasi Celebrity) to loose some weight.

Can you believe him?

Kim is not fat, she just has a bubble butt. She has the kind of assets that make Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce jeoleous.

But the thing that is amazing in this story is that I can't believe he had the stones to tell his significant other that she was fat. That should be grounds for separation. It doesn't matter what your significant other looks like the answer to "does this dress make me look fat?" is... no.

A New Breed of Biker

I work in Detroit, and the Motor City is known for one thing above all else and no... it's not the Red Wings. The one thing this city has is the lack of public transit and the amount of cars that are on the road at any one time. I mean, Detroit is called Motor City and Motown for something. Right?

So, this morning I was driving to work and I saw the darnedest thing. Next to me was a guy in a business suit riding a Vespa. I looked at him and he had a dark blue suit on and his red power tie. He capped of his outfit with a white helmet. The tie flew in the air as he drove at rush hour speed. I was going to ask him where he worked but I didn't have enough time to ask him as he slowed down to get off the highway.

So the question I have in general is… what has become of the Motor City when a guy has the testicles to ride a Vespa to work in a suit? Don't get me wrong. I don't have a problem at all with bikers and blue color guys riding their hogs to work but when did this city go all metro sexual on us? Motown is not Southern California and we don’t take to kindly to MEN riding a Vespa.

If it wasn't for Bad Luck...

My poker game has been dreadful for several weeks running. I can’t seem to be able to get out of this funk. Last week I misplayed several hands and this week it seemed that I just didn’t win any races and couldn't flop a upcard. Normally, I would take a few weeks off so that my mind gets straightened out, but I just don’t know if I would have changed a whole lot this week. We’ll see next week if my fortune changes.

Is it Really Getting This Bad?

In Flint, there has been a rash of manhole covers stolen. Apparently the cast iron grates can fetch as much as $20 each as scrap. Over the last year Flint and nearby Burton have had over 600 of these things stolen which has forced the cities to bolt them down using a special tamper proff bolt that only they have the key for.

How long before the bad guys make one of these keys?

Miss Universe Pageant is Rigged

Last week Miss Venezuela won the prestigious title of Miss Universe. So why am I saying it’s rigged… did I see the other contestants and judge them… Nope, I must have missed that TV show last week. Apparently there was something else on, or I must have been doing something else, or working around the house…

Whatever… the point is it was still rigged I tell ya.

I did a Google search on Miss Universe and agree that Dayana Mendoza is a fine looking 22 year old from Venezuela, but I scanned down the list of competitors and noted that in the finals there were 4 other young ladies vying for the coveted title. Along with Venezuela there were also top Miss’s from Columbia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Russia.
I did a quick search and noted that the event has now been going on for over 50 years and not once was there even a contestant from other places in the Universe like Alpha Century, Eris or even Venus. Just once can they give the young Martian a chance to win? I know that it is a long journey from Uranus, but the severe rocket lag shouldn't be a reason to disqualify her. Is it her fault that she was a few hour late for the event?

Maybe next year we can let Seven of Nine into the event. I mean she is part of The Collective. If that does not scream Miss Universe what does. I know what you’re thinking she has some mechanical parts on her that must be illegal. I checked the rules and they apparently test for illegal banned substances such as steroids, cocaine and marijuana, but not for prosthetics. So I’m starting a get Seven into the event campaign, let this be the first of the many write in votes to hopefully get her into the competition and truly make it a Miss Universe pageant.

Hot or Not Hot?

Gillian Anderson?

I Own a Mac

Well not really... but Apple has won me over. Even if it is just a little.

My wife and kids got me a real IPOD for father’s day. I eventually loaded the ITUNES software for it and started dumping music into the IPOD.

I think the ITUNE software is very easy to use and has tones of features in it. Itchy swears that the Windows Media Player does everything that ITUNE does. It may, but the only thing it can't do for now is load music into the darn IPOD. Seems like Apple hasn't learned from its past mistakes of making software proprietary.

When will they learn?

For now, I have over 15 days of music on the IPOD... and counting. I just keep converting my CD's into whatever ITUNE converts it into and load the music into the IPOD.

So why did I go mainstream and get the IPOD? You don't want to know… it all steams back to a huge ticket price purchase that we made around Christmas time and the free little do that that came with it.

Needless to say, the huge LCD TV eventually came with a free home theater system that had this cool little media player hookup. Nevertheless, the darn thing is proprietary to Apple interface and I couldn’t use the other cheaper IPOD clones that we had. Therefore, the IPOD went on the wish list for birthday or father’s day.

Spilt Milk

I bought a gallon of milk today for $1.99. Well, actually I bought two gallons when I noticed the price. :)

The cost of it reminded me of when I was a kid. I used to be able to buy a half pint of milk for 2 cents. Chocolate milk was a nickel. My mom used to give me a nickel so that I could buy chocolate milk instead of whole milk. Yes, we used to drink whole milk not that 1/2% or skim milk that they are passing off as milk these days.

Not to get too sidetracked... Historically speaking, milk has increased in price as everything else has.
1910 $ .32
1920 $ .56
1930 $ .56
1940 $ .34
1950 $ .82
1960 $ .49
1970 $1.15
1980 $2.16
1990 $2.78
2000 $3.32
2008 $3.99

Why over the last few years have we seen a spike in cost of milk? One of the culprits is… Ethanol.

We have decided that it’s a good idea to make ethanol instead of buying oil from OPEC. We have all bought into the mantra that Ethanol is good for us, as it will give us energy independence.

Ethanol in this country is currently made from corn. Corn is also, what we power those milk-producing vehicles with. People in the heartland have grown to love Ethanol as their corn crops have skyrocketed and are now more valuable. The question is why do we use corn? Brazil uses sugar cane husk to make their ethanol. It is more cost effective as it is what is left over after they extract sugar from the cane. Their Ethanol could be imported from Brazil at a significant cost savings to the end user.

So why don’t we import ethanol from Brazil, as we import oil from Venezuela? The federal government has a tariff on the Ethanol from Brazil that makes it prohibitive to import. Last time I checked it was in the neighborhood of 55 cents per gallon.

“I thought we had NAFTA?” you may be saying. Sure, we have NAFTA, but that is only for the NORTH AMERICAN... not Brazil. The lobbyists from the big farm conglomerates are promoting their farmers and that is why Middle American corn growing farms are very happy that neither political party is removing this tariff. Political parties are around to keep themselves around. Therefore, they do not want to upset farmers in heartlands. Remember Iowa was the first primary state. You don't think that the political machines tried to sway their vote and not upset the voters.

One more point on Ethanol... It has been estimated that it takes a half gallon of gasoline to produce one gallon of ethanol. Let’s face it, corn made Ethanol is not the long-term answer, but as long as we decide that it is better to put food in our cars fuel tanks instead of our fuel tanks food is only going to get more expensive. The high cost of food is here to stay until we take back our country and demand that we REALLY become energy independed and not just shift the cost around. There used to be a saying about spilt milk, but as gasoline cost stabilize over $4 per gallon, we are faced with crying over spilled milk.