Putting life back to normal...

With the decorations finally down, my Christmas season is officially over and with all the chaos here affecting my new year, I managed to get everything down and put away, but I am still awaiting my new power supply for my computer. Additionally, I've spent about $300.00 more on parts I need to put together another box using an Intel motherboard, a 1.6G P4 processor, and 512MB of RAM I've had laying around for the past 2 years. It'll be nice to have a backup in the event this nightmare happens again in the future. The only thing I haven't spent money on is a new monitor. Until tax returns come back, I will just have to deal with an old 15" SVGA. With all the un-anticipated expenses that have recently popped up, it's the best I can do. Hopefully, once I get that new power supply and I can also get regular access to the internet, I can return to posting more regularly. I've also got a new collection of tunes to put into the MoFiZiX MuZiX Jukebox as well. Worry not folks, everything should be back to normal here soon.

Caught in the headlights...

WOW! For me, this year is getting off to a rough start here folks. I know I've been slacking with my attention to this website, but every time I think I've got life under control, the good Lord's got different plans of His own. This past weekend, my sister's puter shit the bed from all the spyware she had on it, so I spent all day Saturday putting that thing back in shape. Then, on the way home that evening I had a run in with one of the locals. The road was slick to begin with and thankfully I wasn't going over 40mph. That stinker darted out across the road and slammed into the front driver side of my car taking out the fender, hood, and headlight (not to mention the fiberglass header panel behind the headlight assembly). All tolled, the damages in parts alone was about $500.00. I still have access to the spray booth at my old body shop, but paint materials are probably going to run me another $150.00. It's the best I can do since I don't have collision on my insurance policy.

If that wasn't enough to ruin the beginning of the new year, on Sunday, the power supply on my computer crapped out... well not entirely. Something is screwy with the connectors. When I wiggle the terminals and switch around the peripheral connectors, it works albeit temporarily. Since I have no spare power supply, I had to order a new one and expect it here before the end of the week. As a backup measure, I decided to spend another $250.00 for parts needed to build another box making use of a P4 motherboard I've had laying around for the past year. Once I get that up and running I will have the security of being able to manage my finances and my website without this kind of interruption in the future and since the kids need a new box anyway, I thought this would be a good way to kill two birds with 250 stones. At least it should be less painful than killing one stupid deer with 10 year old car. Let's just hope the year doesn't get any worse.

Oh yeah, I forgot, it's a presidential election year.

...and I still haven't gotten the chance to take down the freakin' Christmas decorations. SHEESH!

WARNING... DON'T EAT THE FREE CORN!

Several years ago, there was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, "Do you know how to catch wild pigs?" The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The Young man said this was no joke. "You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down on one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat. You slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity."

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental incomes, tax credits for unearned income, ethanol subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms - just a little at a time.

One should always remember...
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH!

I got the above in an email forwarded to me from a guy I recently worked with. He's a bright guy with a good head on his shoulders and very aware about the fragile state of our nation and the world in general. Reading the story reminded me of the parallels to the one about the frog in the pot of water brought slowly up to boiling until it was too late for it to jump out and was subsequently served as dinner to some snooty Frenchman. However, I found this one to be more deeply ground in reality and a far better analogy for emphasizing the dangers of socialism. Though I must admit, if I were to have been the originator of the story, for dead-balls-on reality, I would have made the professor a teacher of sociology who ended up giving the student a 'C' for badmouthing communist principles.

H/T to Tom Murphy. Thanks for the great email, bro ;)

Final push in Iowa... for what?

more inefficient ethenhol in our gasoline?

Who needs corn when there's 4 years worth of gas in that state from politicians alone.

Just how many folks out there in realityland are NOT fed up with all the MSM hype over the 2008 Iowa caucus? The non stop 24/7 coverage of this thing is enough to make me wanna put a 20lb sledge hammer through the screen of my TV. I feel like smacking my head into the wall every time I find myself checking the headlines on the internet as well. Matt Drudge has lost his freakin' mind. For someone who bitches and moans about all the political narcissism during election campaigns, he sure does his fair share of feeding the fire. Ever five freakin' seconds a NEW pole comes out and he treats it like it's breaking news! Which reminds me; I wish I had a dollar every time that guy bitched about how skewed and unreliable the polls were. Same goes for his new buddy over at The Politico.

UHHHH!!! I can't freakin' take it any more!!!!!!! Besides, where the hell is it written in stone that Iowa gets to predict the next president to begin with. If that state is supposed to be a "middle of the road" indicator as to the direction of our country, then believe me folks... we're fucked! The last thing I want is to have my government run by a bunch of centrist pussies... specially when it comes to candidates for the GOP. They might as well just put that commie liberal Hillary in the White House. Least then you know what yer gettin. Spineless RINO Republicans are as unpredictable as weather forecasters. They promise sunny weather for the rest of the week and two days later you get rained on.

After all the half hearted promises, epiphanies, and proclamations, however, there continues to be only ONE candidate who speaks a straight pitch, hasn't wavered from his message, hasn't pandered to liberal debate moderators, believes in and has a proven solid record of standing up for conservative values, knows the importance and seriousness of the office he's running for and has the public recognition needed to succeed come November. Despite what the idiots in the MSM would have you believe and despite their attempts to steer the public toward less capable "centrist" Republican candidates, Fred Thompson is best chance this country has in pursuing the WOT, maintaining tax cuts, fixing the social security debacle, securing a constructionist judiciary, reducing the size and overreach of the federal government and securing our freedoms against all enemies both foreign and domestic.

I believe that Thompson is playing his cards just right. He knows that throwing open his war chest this early in the game is futile. He also knows that grandstanding this early on will only increase the likelihood that he can be knocked back down in the home stretch. Hopefully, continuing to run this campaign by the Gipper's playbook will put him in the winner's circle come November... I hope.