sjaun’s road rage

Hey, did you watch the “town hall” presidential debate tuesday night? I watched the first half hour or so before I switched over to something a little more inspirational and educational - South Park. Eric Cartman was a televangelist healer in this episode. Good stuff! Definitely better than the debate where all I heard was “blah blah blah, my friends, blah blah blah…” and “yada yada yada, universal health care, yada yada yada…”

My favorite thing about these two politicians is how they respect each other so much. There’s no mudslinging or dirty tactics being used in this year’s campaign, as they both promised us… yeah, right! Hell, if they can’t even keep that promise, what makes you think they will keep any of their other promises?!

What I also love is how neither of them tell the American people what they should be doing. It’s all about how each of them is our savior, how they are going to bail us out of this economic mess. Do you really trust them to do that? People need to start taking care of themselves, instead of expecting the government to do it for them. People can blame the government and banks all they want for the mess they are in, but the truth is, they are the ones who made the bad decisions, didn’t educate themselves on the ramifications of the mortgage they were signing, and now expect to be “saved”. The sense of entitlement in this country astounds me.

This is the land of opportunity, people, not the land of entitlement! The American dream is not to borrow on credit beyond what you can afford in order to live a life of luxury, and never expect to have to pay the piper. If you happen to be one of the lucky few who have a lot, God bless you. But most of us don’t have that, yet we feel we must keep up with those who do, and even worse, feel that we deserve it. You don’t deserve it unless you earn it, people. Be responsible with what you have, save your money, and live within your means!

OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now…

Well surprise, surprise, the Dow has dropped up to 800 points today, despite the passing of the Bailout Bill late last week.  I guess it hasn’t shored up the investors’ confidence quite like they expected it would… 

Just thought you might like to know the salaries of our "representatives", the very people who went against our wishes and voted this debacle in.  The following is as of 2006, and might be higher now, but this is the latest I could find.

• President — $400,000
• Vice President — $212,100
• Speaker of the House — $212,100
• House Majority & Minority Leaders — $183,500
• House / Senate Members & Delegates — $165,200
• Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — $212,100
• Associate Justices of the Supreme Court — $203,000

Of course, this does not show the salaries of all of the supporting staff that each one of these positions holds.  And remember, besides these salaries that we are paying, most of these people are independently wealthy anyway, with most of them having net worth in the range of $9-27million.  So how can we expect these people to truly represent the majority of America when they are much more well-off than the rest of us?  They do not share our pain, and they do not understand our plight.  So much for true democracy.

So they basically passed this thing without really understanding the ramifications of it and ignoring the advice of many economists, due to the fear-mongering that was going on and the need to feel like they did "something".  How pathetic is that?  And the ones who voted against it the first time around and then changed their vote later are even worse, as they did so after all kinds of "provisions" had been made.  For your reading pleasure, here are some of those "provisions".  Hey, it’s good to know that the people who make wooden arrows and the ones who run race tracks will be well-taken care of…

Remember this also, regardless of who you like, both McCain and Obama voted FOR this Bill.  They are not on your side…

Here’s Ron Paul’s take on the whole situation.  He led the charge in opposition to the Bill.

Bailout Passes House Vote

We knew it was going to pass sooner or later, as cries about the complete and utter collapse of our economy and life as we now know it were being screamed from every corner of the White House and the media.  But how much is it really going to help?  Is this really a solution, or is it more like applying a band-aid to a bullet wound.  Is it really going to strengthen our economy or is it going to weaken the dollar in the long run, more than it already is, thanks to the moves the Fed has made over the last few months (or years)?  All I can tell you is this:  there has never been a time when it is more important to SAVE your money.  SAVE, SAVE, SAVE!  What do you think?

Biden vs. Palin Debate

I’m certainly not thrilled about the idea of either of these tickets winning the presidency, and really wish Ron Paul had gotten a fair shake.  Hell, I’d even rather have Nader in at this point.  But things as they are, corrupt and controlled, we are left with these two choices.  I watched the first hour or so of the debate (that’s about all I can stomach of these people) and if I had to choose a winner I guess I would go with Biden, not because I like him, but because he’s just a better debater.  Even if you didn’t like what he had to say, he answered the questions more directly than did Mrs. Palin, who, as cute as she is with her “you betcha’s” and “hecks”, probably appeals more to the common everyday middle class man.  But she definitely evaded some questions, even though she came across much better than she had in her Katie Couric interview.  Also, I think the moderator, Gwen Ifill, did a fine job, despite the rumblings from the Right that she was not a fair choice for the role.  What do you think?

Wachovia Bought by Wells Fargo

While I am pleased that this happened rather than the federally imposed Citigroup (who is crying foul play and demanding the deal be called off) deal, you just have to wonder how much more of this is going to happen.  I mean, this is the 4th largest bank in America being taken over, and it’s MY bank!  But then again, before it was Wachovia it was First Union.  And before First Union it was Corestates.  And before Corestates it was Meridian.  I can’t wait to see who’s next!  Who is going to buy out Wells Fargo?!  My guess is Bank of America.  I believe they are in a very good position moving forward.  Time will tell. What do you think?

California Asking for $7Billion

…to pay for “teachers’ salaries, nursing homes, law enforcement and every other state-funded service” this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger warns. Wow.  The hits just keep on coming.  It seems everyone is just asking the federal government to bail them out these days.  What’s next?  PETA demands $32billion for animal housing?  Sure, the government will bail you out!  Hell’s Angels needs $18billion for new bikes and leather outfits?  Sure, no problem!  But you and I make a couple bad decisions and find ourselves in a deep hole?  Sorry, you have to hand over your house keys and find another place to live.  It’s nuts to me.  We’re going to hell in a hand-basket here kids.  What do you think?

Chinese Pandas Fed Chicken Soup for Their Health

Finally, a headline that is not depressing.  They say the soup, being fed to them twice a day, will help the pandas deal with their stress and prepare them for the winter months.  I think this is something we can all learn from.  What do you think?
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p.s.  Wow, it’s even worse than I thought… Just to further let you know what a corrupt and disgusting occurrence that the passing of this Bailout Bill is, please listen to the following video:

“Martial Law?!?!”  You’ve got to be kidding me!!! These pathetic and weak politicians were threateningly coerced into passing the damn thing!  If you are not outraged at this, there is something wrong with you…

It’s a sad, sad day.  She’s gone.  Off the list.  Sayonara.  The dream is over…

Yup, Scarlett Johansson got married over the weekend.

My sister, fully aware of my desire to make the starlet my own, notified me of the bad news today.  You know, I used to be a big fan of Ryan Reynolds.  He’s funny, a decent actor, Canadian (seriously, how can you not like Canadians, eh?), makes good movies.  What’s not to like?  But why’d he have to go and steal my girl?  I mean, that’s just rude.  DAMN YOU, RYAN REYNOLDS, WITH YOUR PERFECT HAIR, YOUR WIT AND CHARM AND YOUR SIX-PACK ABS!!!

Now I’m left with nothing but her pictures plastered all over my walls and the regret of not having done more to make this dream a reality.  I kept telling myself to wait it out, she’ll come around.  So what about that silly restraining order, I’m sure that whole ‘incident’ was all just a misunderstanding…  but now it’s too late and here I sit, in the dark, all alone…  no one to love me…  Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” blasting in a long continuous loop…

Ok, just had to get that out of my system.  I’m alright now.  Time to move on…

Hey, is Jessica Biel still available???

So I went on this dinner cruise on the Hudson with some friends of mine Sunday night. The Captain took us around so we could see the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty. It was a great time! The weather was perfect, the company was excellent, dinner was great, and the view was wonderful. What more could you ask for?

After the cruise is when the party really started though. Once we were back ashore we walked uptown and found a nice little watering hole called Social. At one point the girls went outside for a smoke and left my friend Billy and I inside. After what seemed like a bit too long for a cigarette break I asked him if he had seen them – he hadn’t and decided he better go check up on them. Turns out they had made some new friends a little ways down the street with a couple bike-cart taxi drivers from Russia, one of whom was named Evelyn (tsk tsk), who of course the girls, after having had a few drinks, thought were the nicest guys in the world, but who us guys were a little leery of, considering we were in the heart of NYC, and they were complete strangers offering their beers to the girls, and the girls just so happened to be looking great that night, all dressed up to the nines. No chance these guys had an ulterior motive, right? And did I mention they were bike-cart taxi drivers? No offense to all of you fellows out there, I’m sure some of you are really nice, but… So anyway the girls come back and have this grand plan that these guys will give us a ride back to the hotel, about which we were not really sure of, but eventually caved in and said “sure, why not? How bad can it be?” So Billy and Jen jumped on one cart, Danielle and I jumped on the other, and Evelyn and his buddy start pedaling down the street.

Now I don’t know how much time you’ve spent in NYC, but the traffic there is a little bit, well… CRAZY! It’s a tad bit busier than in my hometown of Deposit, NY where the population is about 3,000 and no cars are on the road after 8:30pm. I’ve got to give these guys credit for what they do, as they put themselves in harm’s way every night, and I’m sure they don’t have a very good health benefits package. But I have to admit, that aside from worrying about cars flying at us from every direction, that this little ride was a pretty good time. J In fact, the girls tagged it as the highlight of their weekend. It wasn’t the cruise, or the dinner, or the skyline… it was the 2 ½ block, death-defying bike ride that ended with the 2 drivers racing each other to the finish line, while the girls cheered them on and I believe sometimes cursed at them to go faster. I’m convinced if they had whips they would have lashed these guys bloody to the end like a jockey does to Smarty Jones!

So after that harrowing experience we had a couple more cocktails at the bar across the street from the hotel, and then decided that we were hungry again and needed to get some of the best food in the whole world – NYC pizza. Mmmmmm gooooood. So we walked the girls back to the hotel and set out to go get pizza even though we had no idea what would be open on a Sunday night after 1am. As our journey started Billy decided it would be a good idea to stop at every bar we come across and do a shot. I just happened to be in one of those swell moods where everything that is probably not a good idea, sounds like one anyway so I said “Yeah! Let’s Do It!”. After five of these shot stops we had still not found a place that could make us pizza, yet we trudged on. At our 6th stop I decided it was time to put an end to the shots with an order of Knob’s Creek. Not only did Mr. Bartender give us a shot of this fine, very strong whiskey, but he just about tripled the normal size of one. After that, we definitely did not need any more alcohol at this point, and decided it was time to go back to the hotel and order pizza over the phone, something we should have thought of before the trek started.

While waiting for the pizza to arrive, we apparently were making a bit too much noise, as we began hearing our neighbor beating on the wall next door. I thought this must be some type of game, so of course I pounded back. A couple of minutes later we hear a knock at our door and upon answering found an odd old man, about 55ish, in a pair of black speedos looking very irate. He was some kind of European (possibly German) with a very thick accent, and he had a strange growth or something sticking out of his left shoulder. In other words, he was impossible to be taken seriously by a sober person, let alone 2 drunken miscreants like ourselves. We asked him how we could help him and he says, “What, are you schtoooben?!”, of which I’m pretty sure he meant “stupid”. To this we replied, “Dude, you’re the freak out in the hall in snazzy briefs!” He comes back with a threat that he’s called the cops and we tell him that’s good and we’ll save them some pizza. He then retreated to his room where we did not hear from him again until he was leaving the hotel at 9am while we were of course fast asleep and decided some good revenge would be to kick our door a couple of times on his way down the hallway. I jumped out of bed and ran out in the hall and gave them a piece of my foggy mind and went back to bed. Good times, good times

After we checked out of the hotel at noon, we decide it would be a good idea to walk around Central Park. This was a grave mistake we would soon find out as, in the words of Billy, “It’s kind of hard to find parking in the busiest spot in the city, on the busiest day of the week, at the busiest time of day.” This would have been all well and good, had everyone taken care of their bathroom business before leaving the hotel, but alas, we all did not. After an hour of looking for a spot to park with no luck, and two of our number experiencing severe stomach cramps, Billy then comes up with another brilliant idea. “Here’s our ploy. We’re going to go back to the hotel and tell them we left something in the room so that we can go back up and use the bathroom.” So we get back to the hotel and drop the girls off and go find parking. We then go inside and look for a public area restroom in the bar area and come up empty. Billy then decides its time to utilize his ploy. While I stand off at a distance in embarrassment he approaches the front desk and asks for a room key as we left something in the room. She of course denies his request but tells him somebody will meet him at the room to check it out. Foiled again!!! We then exit out the side door and go look for the girls outside, who like normal people had simply gone into the bar area and asked to use the restroom, and simple request having been granted, were feeling much better at this point.

So the moral of the story is, if you have to go to the bathroom, just ask…

Have you ever received a letter from someone who uses no punctuation or no transitional verbiage in their written communication so that you have to really work at deciphering the meaning of said letter and thereby have to question the validity of their argument or whether they have ever received a formal education or maybe they did but somewhere along the way they got bumped on the head or experienced some other tragic happening which caused them to lose all sense of proper grammar or maybe its just that they don’t really care about that kind of thing or they just want to mess with you and see what you are made of because they feel the need to filter out the type of friends they want to keep around and the ones they want to leave behind because no one wants friends who are impatient and unwilling to deal with unpleasant situations as they arise even though they are bound to because that is the way life is and if you just bury your head in the sand and do not deal with it or if you turn your back on your friends then what kind of person are you well I will tell you what kind of person you are and that would be a weak and uncaring individual but do not worry because I will give you another chance to redeem yourself because that is just the type of guy that I am but let me tell you about something that happened to me the other day when I went to see my friend who had flown in from Seattle to spend the weekend with her sister in NYC to get one last game in good old Yankees Stadium before they tear down the House that Ruth Built and raise ticket prices so that the casual joeschmoe fan will not be able to afford tickets anymore for the new stadium due to good old corporate greed but I digress as this is not the point of my story but rather the fact that I drove into the city from my office which is only 30 miles away so I did not think it would be that big of a deal but soon found out that it was a huge mistake as I found myself sitting in traffic just outside the city in a long line of vehicles waiting to get through the Lincoln tunnel which would not have been so bad had it not been for the fact that I drive a stick shift and my clutch is kind of tough to deal with when you are only moving 5 feet at a time with a two to three second interval in between movements and also because I had drank of lot of liquids that day and I have a small bladder to begin with and by the time I got to the hotel 3 hours after I had left my office I felt like I was ready to flood the Lincoln Tunnel by myself but in the end I made it there and found my friend at the Waldorf Astoria and we went out on the town and had a great time catching up as we had not seen each other in about 15 years since college so that was fun and when the night ended I went back to get my car from the parking garage and I was greeted with a $59 parking fee which of course made me extremely ecstatic about the fact that I do not live in the city and I do not have to go there very often because who can afford that nonsense unless you are the Donald or A-Rod but it is nice to visit now and then and I am going back this Sunday with some friends to enjoy a little dinner cruise on the Hudson which should be nice unless we all get seasick or food poisoning but that never happens does it I mean come on why would I even think of something like that unless I was some sort of worry wart or maybe I just want to raise the level of awareness about proper sanitation habits and good hygiene because that is important and I feel that too many people are not cleaning themselves enough and BO is like the most disgusting thing when you are sitting in a meeting and the guy next to you just reeks of neglect to do the right thing and wash himself on a regular basis but sometimes it happens and you have to deal with it just like you have had to deal with this silly runon sentence but you do realize that you are a more better person because of it now don’t you?

Sorry I had to stop – I ran out of breath there…

On Friday night I stopped in with a friend at a place here in Easton called Ringside for a drink before we went to see Tropic Thunder. Ringside is a sports bar owned by Larry Holmes, who is from the area. We sat down and I asked the bartender if Larry ever came in, to which she replied, “every now and then”. Not 10 minutes later the Champ himself walked in the door. He made his way around the bar saying hi to the regulars and when he got to where I was I extended my hand and said, “Hello, Mr. Holmes.” His giant hand enveloped mine and he asked me how I was and much to my surprise he sat down next to me and we started talking. One thing led to another and 3 shots later I challenged him to an arm-wrestling match. Clearly he underestimated me and accepted my challenge. I hated to embarrass the champ at his own restaurant, but I have a huge reputation of my own to uphold. After I put a quick whooping on him, he took care of the bar bill and told me to never come back.

Ok, that didn’t really happen, but you gotta admit it’s a better story than he shook my hand and then went on his way, which is what really happened… But I did get to shake the hand of Mr. Larry Holmes, one of the greatest heavyweights ever! He was from a great era of boxing, back when it was truly a sport and not some over-exaggerated, over-hyped spectacle ruined by guys like Don King, and a maniacal Mike Tyson. He still looks great, like he has all his faculties about him, unlike the great Muhammad Ali, who he battled and beat for the WBC title back in 1980. You can read more about his great career here.

Oh, and by the way, Tropic Thunder was a pretty darn funny movie.

I have no deep discussions for you today, nor any great stories to share, but here are some thoughts that bounced around in my cavernous head on this lazy Sunday…

Tom Brady is out for the season!  There goes the Patriots’ chances.  Shame it happened in Week One.  They really missed their window last year, didn’t they?  I’m so glad I’m a Giants fan!  But you really have to feel for Tom, now he’ll get paid millions just for rehabbing while getting sympathy sex from his supermodel girlfriend Gisele.  Poor guy…

Vampires are cool.

Hilary says she’s doing what she can to back Obama and help him get elected, but I’m thinking the best thing that could happen for her and what I’m sure she’s is wishing for would be for McCain to win so she can run again in 4 years.  Which would make for fascinating campaigning, considering McCain, now 72, will probably only serve one term, clearing the way for Sarah vs. Hilary in 2012.  Talk about a major catfight!  Wouldn’t it be cool if they actually had to fight for it in a cage-match?!

I love Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA.

I had a phenomenal sandwich today, made from leftovers from last night’s dinner at Melt, a nice fairly new Italian restaurant at the Promenade in Center Valley, PA.  A bit on the expensive side, but great service and great food.  Anyway, enough advertising.  This sammich was awesome, containing mortadella, prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, and olives on fresh warm bread.  Delectable, I tell you!

Alyssa Milano is still incredibly hot!

I was remembering back to three weeks ago when after my friends Billy and Jenny’s wedding, my buddy Garrett and I went back to the hotel to change and asked the guy at the front desk if the pool was still open.  When he said it was not, and that no, he would not make an exception for us, Garrett proceeded to tell him he needed to practice and tried to make the guy believe he was Michael Phelps.  For a brief second I thought it might work.  Alas, it did not.

Good night kids.

sjaun

If you’ve been following the presidential race this year, then you’ve probably seen at least bits and pieces of the highly televised national conventions for the major parties this year.  If you’re really into politics then you’re probably enthralled by the rousing speeches and the over-the-top stage-shows of one party, and completely disgusted by the other’s.  If you’re a bit biased toward either the left or the right then you probably tend to cheer when your favorite party blasts the short-comings of the other, yet take it quite personally when that party finds something negative to say about yours.

This stuff just cracks me up.  I look at these people at these conventions cheering like they’re at a rock concert and I can’t for the life of me figure out why they are getting so excited.  They’re hearing the same thing they’ve heard for years now, about how this party is going to do this and this party is going to do that, and yet they’re still buying into it.  But what’s really going to change, no matter who is elected?  We’re still stuck in the same system, run by the same wealthiest people in the world, with these figureheads shouting out the same promises that they never deliver on, all the while living very comfortably off of the hard-earned money of you and I.  Big Government continues to grow and we get closer to losing our freedoms, along with our money.

So I guess it is kinda like a big rock concert, and the politicians are the rock stars and the songs we love hearing are those classic promises with those timeless tunes., and if you know the melody you can sing along, and if you get close enough to the stage you can hold up your banner and scream as loud as you can and hopefully make eye contact with Mr. or Mrs. Wonderful, and they’ll drip a little sweat on you, and if you’re really lucky maybe they’ll take you backstage and sing those songs to you in private…  well, maybe not, Slick Willie ain’t in the running this year…

Picture this:  I’m sitting at a traffic light with no other vehicles in the lane next to me or behind me, just back from a trip that should have taken about an hour and 15 minutes, but ended up being 2 hours due to some unknown delay on I-80 which caused my 9-mile stint on that particular road to take a painful 45 minutes.  Painful due not only to the fact that I needed to relieve myself, but also because I had neglected to fill my gas tank before entering the highway when there was a very convenient gas station right there for me, which had very reasonable prices on its petrol, relatively speaking.  So as I’m watching my gas gauge drop to a dangerously low level, I could sense my frustration level rising at an equal or even greater rate, as my bladder is telling me I may need to cause a spectacle on the edge of the highway for the slowly moving travelers.  But as I inched closer to my desired exit, the traffic started moving more freely and I finally felt the exhilaration of being able to press that gas pedal down!  You know what I’m talking about.  It’s almost as good as finally relieving yourself after having to hold it in for an extended period of time.  And I gotta tell you, when you have the top down on the jeep on a day as beautiful as this last Labor Day was, and you can scream down the asphalt, there are not many things that can touch it.  (Okay, yes there are, but stick with me here…)

So I’m sitting at this redlight, about a mile away from my final destination, when I see this guy on a cherry red motor scooter drive up next to me.  This is one of those fancy new machines that get great gas mileage and have a top speed of about 37 mph.  So he pulls up and looks at me and I’m not lying when I tell you this guy isn’t a day if he’s not about 75 years old.  We make eye contact and he says with the most serious expression, “Wanna drag?”  At this point I did pee a little in my pants, and we shared a good hearty laugh.  Then the light changed and I gave him the first 10 yards before I hit the gas and waved good bye. But I love that guy.  I don’t know his name and I’ll probably never see him again, but I love him, and that’s the kind of guy I want to be when I get to be his age, if I do indeed make it that far…

Remember to enjoy life, and never take yourself too seriously.