First – and most importantly, go here and check out the line up for an eleven hour marathon of Operation Valentine – sending verbal Valentines for the troops doing the job that needs to be done. Don’t be a weeny – I’ll be checking it out all day, and I really want to see you guys popping in now and again too.

Second – whoever signed me up for Rosanna Pulido’s e-mail list – I appreciate the fact that you think I can do something, but I cannot contribute (no income = no contributions) and I certainly can’t vote – at least, not without ACORN’s help, since I live in Glendale, Arizona and she is running in the fifth district of Illinois. However, if you ARE in the Illinois fifth district, do what you can to support her – she is all for border control, and the invader’s activist’s are fighting very hard against her, proof to me that she is doing good work FOR this country.

Third – check out the blogs listed over in the sidebar under “Daily Read” and let them know how talented and insightful they are.

Fourth – I’ve temporarily halted the auto-play on the BlogTalkRadio widget in the sidebar. Yes, even I got tired of hearing my scratchy throat from so long ago. I suppose this means that I better come up with a new show if I want to have something playing, right?

Chat with you later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Or, it is my imagination?

Remember this?

In case you need a reminder, it’s from the late 1940s. The image of Pepsi has gone through some changes of late. The latest change, however, smacks of corporate sucking-up like nothing I have seen before. Pepsi insists it’s a coincidence:

You’ve probably seen this logo already – since it’s all over billboards and the bus “shelters” here in Phoenix, I am sure that we are not the only market that has been saturated thusly.

Now, for the sucking-up part. Or perhaps you have already noticed the similarity?

Just another reason to stick to Coca-Cola products.

Chat with you later –

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

I had an unusual fare Saturday evening. (not that there are “usual” fares when you drive a cab, but…) I picked up this lady who had called for a cab rather than drive home from a bar in Peoria. She is a bit older than I am, and she had very securely tied one on. She was unusual in a couple of aspects.

First – she declared that she called a cab only because she didn’t want to drive all the way home. Not that she would ever face a DUI ticket – she claimed to have diplomatic immunity (New Zealand citizen). I kept my mouth shut.

Second – she started rambling about really enjoying her evening out, since it was more a trip down memory lane than anything else. Seems she and her recently exed husband used to hang at the bar where she was pickled picked up. Everyone kept asking her where “the big guy” was, and she says she patiently explained the most intimate details of the divorce to one and all, including the fact that her big brute of a VietNam Veteran Marine husband of hers just couldn’t seem to handle his physical failings – the strokes just really “creeped [her] out.” I kept my mouth shut.

Third – she then tangented off to the new administration. (My thoughts on this subject are posted in the comment section of Texas Fred’s post, “MY Free Speech Regarding Barack Hussein Obama“) Her main point was that she could not understand how in the world the Americans could just stand by and let this happen to their country. I posited that we didn’t let it happen, so much as we had it rammed down our throats by the Defeatist, Elitist Media (h/t: BZ). She insisted that we “let it happen” so I went back to keeping my mouth shut.

Fourth – and this is the kicker – she waxed poetic about her adopted country (here in the US of A) and how she longed for the old days when she was in high school and college, and “they” would all gather together and demonstrate against the administration, that nasty war they had saddled us with, and generally Made Things Happen.

I could no longer keep my mouth shut.

We were near her address, so I opened up a bit. I told her in no uncertain terms that her attitude about the citizens of this country was misplaced – the anger should be towards her post-hippie, leftist leaning groupies from her college years, since they are the ones shouting longest and loudest about how The Messiah, TEH ONE, this Halfrican Wunderkind is going to Save This Country from itself.

I lit into her about her attitude about her husband – how as a Marine, he was used to being the one who took care of others, and abandoning him just because he was having trouble adjusting to being the one who was being taken care OF was extremely selfish of HER.

I then told her in no uncertain terms that BRAGGING about demonstrating against VietNam and helping the enemy by being the catalyst to subverting the drive of this country was just out and out STUPID, and I bet out loud that she also thought the War on Terror was a waste of time, too – when she started getting upset that I had attacked this un-named bastion of her belief, I had had enough. I told her that it was HER attitude that was leading this country down the well-paved path to Hell, not the conservatives who were trying to keep this country’s head above water. She got kind of pissy after that – after all, I had just killed her buzz – and she paid her fare and stomped into her townhouse.

For some reason, I didn’t get a tip from her.

However, I was led to consider some of what she had said. Yes, we do have a socialist politician in the White House now – but we will get through this. One thing she kept on about was how the Americans she ran into were all “oh, this will pass” and didn’t appear to be too worried about our future. My reply to that was “Do not mistake my calm demeanor for not caring, anymore than you would mistake a duck on the river as not being very active.” In her drunken state, she missed the analogy. But know this – even though we appear to be calm in person, blogs such as most of the ones you will find in my sidebar are an indication (to me, anyway) that this country’s patriots are far from complacent about the direction this country is headed.

I must say that once her townhouse sells (good luck with that, in this market) and her current position is completed, that this country will perhaps be better off without her attitude – which I cannot peg as anti-American so much as pro-defeatist-American.

On a side note – I’ll try to get more cab stories up. Remind me to tell you about the two guys I picked up in The District who got to walk home after all…

I’ll chat with you more later.

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

So – which would be a priority in a Congress of this country?

A – securing the borders and ensuring that no unauthorized persons would be able to enter, or

B – legislation that would protect private industry in the event of a stupid consumer.

The correct answer, in this bizarro time and place, would be “B” – that is, at the urging of the Rubber Manufacturers Association Congress made it illegal for any retailer of tires to handle, adjust, mount, or repair any tire more than ten years old. At the same time, they have been tightening up the regulations for repairing tires in general.

I found this out the hard way today. I was lucky enough to pick up not one but two nails in the right rear tire. They happened to be about an inch and a half apart, well within the “repairable area” as defined by earlier legislation. However, due to other regulations, because they were within ninety degrees of each other, the tire could not be patched by the company I bought them from (not wanting to give them bad publicity since it’s not their fault that Congress is too interested in private industry, I will refer to them as “Biscount Tires”). However, since I had bought the road hazard warranty, they would replace the tire for free. Good thing – the tires on the beast run about $160 each. Roughly. Of course, “free” doesn’t include a new road hazard warranty, or lifetime balancing and valve stems, or the environmental fee, so the “free” tire costs about $40.00.

The tire was not in stock, so they offered to put my spare on and I could come back in a day or two to get the new tire mounted up. The offer to put my spare on was made prior to them looking at my spare, and with the caveat that if it was in bad shape they would have to do something else.

(a little background here – when i replaced all four of the tires about a year and a half ago, i asked them to take the best of the old set and put it on as my spare. the shop told me that the spare i had was in better shape than any of the ones i was replacing, so the spare was left alone)

When they checked the DOT number on the spare, it turned out that what I had was, in fact, the factory spare from the 1998 model year. They informed me that they could not install the spare as it would violate the “ten year old” rule. They were, however, nice enough to “loan” me a used tire from out back. Hmm – I know the spare is good, as I’ve had occasion to use it (I run over nails a lot) and have not had reason to question it’s road-worthiness. But, they were willing to mount up a used tire from their junk pile and put THAT on my vehicle. I felt so secure with that knowledge…

In talking to the manager of that particular Biscount Tire store, I found out that Wal-Mart won’t even be selling tires after 2010 or ’11 due to the new laws. The “ten year old” rule came about around one or two years ago, and I must have gotten my tires replaced just before it was implemented.

“Free” does not mean “no cost” anymore.

We’ll chat more later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

I know, you hardly noticed I was gone.

Well, except for those of you who were kind enough to leave comments, and I thank you for expressing your concern.

All is well, except that there’s a mulatto socialist in the White House now, the Isrealis promised to stop beating on the hamas cowards, the stock market continues it’s nosedive and, horror of horrors, the Arizona Cardinals are going to be in the Superbowl in Tampa.

Talk about end times…

I used the time away to rethink and get some personal things taken care of. Another thing I did was upgrade WordPress to 2.7. You, the reader, probably didn’t even notice. It sure looks different from this end. It’s also slower and clunkier, but maybe I’ll get used to that and it will seem normal after a while. Maybe.

A round of holidays and birthdays has come to an end. Between November and January, my extended family has about forty three birthdays and at least four anniversaries that I can remember; add in Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s and the party just never stops.

I’ll be working up to posting on a regular basis again, and possibly even getting the BlogTalkRadio show going again. I know that I will be putting a lot of time into the family history side, and that will take precedence for a while. It may eventually even take over this site as the primary reason for existing. Maybe.

At any rate – I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Holiday season.

I’ll chat with you later –

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!