More Journal Entries

Still more journal entries (gotta keep 'em going):

5/17/2004


Fifty years ago today, the Supreme Court made its unanimous ruling in Brown v. Bd. of Education.

Good thing too. Otherwise, we’d have thousands of impoverished black children attending crumbling, substandard, inadequately funded and horribly overcrowded schools.

Whew. We really dodged a bullet there.

People, WAKE UP! Our society—and our schools by extension—is still segregated. It’s just being done a lot more subtly these days!

It amazes me how this country continues to function with its head so far up its ass.

And now, gay people can be legally married in Massachusetts. I can only say this: Why get married? It seems to me that they currently enjoy all the perks of marriage with none of the drawbacks. I think the only ones that benefit from this are the divorce lawyers. That’s it! It’s all a plot by divorce lawyers! They saw that they were getting no money from this fairly good-sized group of people and decided to do something about it.

Personally, I don’t give a good Goddamn about the whole issue. People have a right to live the way they want to live. And as long as they leave me alone, I’m willing to do the same.

5/18/2004

Tomorrow has been designated by the internuts as “stick-it-up-their-ass” day. The idea is that if nobody buys gas tomorrow, then the oil companies will lose more than $4 billion in revenue, or some similarly crazy notion.

A better thing to call it might be “head up your ass” day.

I mean, do people seriously think they can drive oil companies out of business by simply not buying any gas for one day?

Wise up.

Let’s consider a few points:

1) Oil companies make a product we need. It won’t matter when we buy it. We’ll still buy it.

2) The only ones who MIGHT be hurt by this one-day boycott are the people who own and/or operate the local gas stations.

3) Not buying any gas for one day simply means that we’ll buy TWICE AS MUCH on the days before and after.

If people are REALLY serious about using less gas, then there’re a few things they can do:

· Buy a hybrid car. The price of them keeps going down
· Join a car pool.
· Take the bus to work.

Alas, I doubt any of this will ever happen. We are a nation of idiots. Let’s revel in it.

5/19/2004

I just can’t leave the idea of this one-day gas boycott alone.

Today, while driving into work, the low-fuel light in my car came on. Therefore I will buy gas on my way home tonight. To hell with the boycott!

I don’t have a specific day on which I buy gas. I buy it when I need it. I usually try to buy before the price goes up, but lately there is no way to know when that might happen. It’s like Russian roulette.

Now, I drive a Ford Escort. I get about 30 MPG in the city, and I can usually go two weeks or more between fill-ups. I also have a 10.5 gallon tank, and, even with the ridiculous prices today, it costs less than $20 to fill my tank.

My sister drives a Mountaineer. It has a 22.5 gallon gas tank. For those of you playing at home, that means that it cost twice as much to fill with gas as mine. But the kicker is, she gets half the MPG that I get, therefore she’s also paying twice as much for gas as I am.

It really makes me laugh when I hear people complain about high gas prices when they pull their gas-guzzling SUV’s into the gas stations. Want to pay less for gas? Drive a smaller car!!

I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve pulled into a gas station opposite a truck or SUV, gotten out, filled my car up, and driven away, all while the other person is still pumping their gas.

My next car will be a gas-electric hybrid. I don’t care how dangerous they may be to firemen (see 5/6/04)! I’ve got better things to spend my money on besides gas. Like beer, for example!


5/22/04

THE TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING?!

What is the fucking deal with Florida having not just one, but TWO hockey teams?

I challenge anyone to tell me the last time a lake froze over in Florida to the point where you could safely skate on it. For that matter, can you also tell me the last time that happened in Dallas, San Jose, Phoenix, Los Angeles, or any other city in those latitudes. For Pete’s sake, they’re already talking about how there may be NO Canadian hockey teams in a few years. Sheesh. That’s where the sport was invented!

It gets worse. A while ago, the Minnesota North Stars became the Dallas Stars. Picture Minnesota without an NHL team. That’s like a bar that doesn’t serve alcohol. And moving from Minnesota to Dallas. That's like moving from Beverly Hills to South Central L.A.

I think that no city should have a professional hockey team unless it experiences winter weather on a regular basis. Hockey is a WINTER sport. They also need to shorten the damn season. We shouldn’t have hockey teams playing in JUNE. Let me repeat it again: Hockey is a WINTER sport.

They also need to go back to smaller goalie pads. Something is very wrong when a team with some of the greatest goal scorers in history fails to score a single goal in its final two playoff games.

God I hate Calgary!