DADDY NEEDS A NEW SET OF WHEELS...

I need a new car. Not a new car mind you, I am too cheap and laden with family responsibilities to get into a car payment. I have a cool 18 year old truck. My dad gave it to me. One of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. But it sits a lot and has some "sitting" issues. While living the true TWAATFOG lifestyle I commute & travel most days on two wheels. However, when I need a car I really need a car bad. Anyone who knows me knows that I am just a little bit OCD. If I own it, it needs to function properly or I will not sleep at night. Not just my cars...everything I own.

I looked at a jeep last week. It was really cool but the gas fumes in the cabin and the total impracticality of this vehicle made me pass. The coolness of the jeep was outweighed by the need to carry people & stuff. This saddened me since I have wanted to own a jeep from the age of 10. My truck is a two seater but in a pinch we could jam 2+a car seat up front. Come to think of it, every vehicle less one that I have owned since 1994 has been a 2ish seater. I need 4 seats. I need a new car. But again, being the cash strapped American that I am I have only a certain amount I can spend to upgrade my situation.

I miss the days when I could drop $900 and get some ugly reliable transportation. The car that got me through most of college was a $250 estate sale wagon. Maybe I have just been lucky in the past. I have surfed local classifieds and CL only to see a parade of junk. As impractical as the jeep may be I have yet to see anything better. Even dropping a new motor into my current P/U seems a better option than most of what I am finding. I could host a Glenn-o-thon to raise money for my new ride but that seems like a very Screech or Gary Coleman thing to do.

So TWAATFOG nation (the 4 of you) what do you think? Any advice? Have a friend who needs to sell a good car cheap? Let me know via comment.

Poor poor Big Easy or These Things I Believe?

Ever since walterindenver propped the TWAATFOG on his site the traffic here has been staggering. I have had three (3) comments! Wow people have read this thing. So, in good conscience I thought I should do a review of the contents, you know sometimes these are written out of passion.

A few months ago during the San Diego wild fires and their "classy" local emergency response I sort of ripped the big easy a new jambalaya hole for the "un-classy" local Katrina response. Well, in retrospect that felt a little harsh. So I did some fresh googling and well I don't know. The first thing I stumbled upon was an FBI report stating from 1-1-08 through 2-6-08 there had been 21 murders in N.O. Wow, that breaks down to like .57 per day or in less mathematical terms someone gets murdered like every 42 hours or so. Yikes!

Then this morning this little gem gets kicked my way. Mayor Nagin and Police Chief Reily jackassing with a couple of assault rifles. Great police work there Lou. The spin on this will be amazing. "I see N.O. is like a Chocolate city, you know a little white cocoa, some Dutch cocoa, and it is all stirred together in a giant bowl like structure with this big-ass machine gun."

Once again the people of the Big Easy are victimized or made out to look "un-classy" by their corrupt political leaders.

Not to mention the flagrant display of poor gun handling technique. C'mon Ray, people only shoot from the hip in the movies!

Berkeley Gets it Right

A very vocal minority of anti war socialists usually gets it's way right? Maybe not. Local and national outrage over the harassment of USMC recruiters in Berkeley, CA has pressured the city council to reverse it's resolution on the re-zoning of recruiting offices in their community. Really, they were mad about the war in Iraq, and the truth is nobody is thrilled with it. But they aimed their discontent at the USMC and not the current political administration that put them in Iraq.

I am proud of the people of Berkeley that stood up and said that this city council does not speak for them on this issue. Now I know why councilperson Donna Spring said "I think we should just go ahead and pass it," "We can't take everything to the voters." I guess she knew something about her constituency.

See details below:

(02-13) 01:33 PST Berkeley -- After a day of enraged confrontation outside Berkeley City Hall between anti-war and pro-military demonstrators, the City Council backed down early Wednesday from its controversial decision to tell the U.S. Marines they are "unwelcome intruders" for operating a downtown recruiting center.

Council members conceded that they had erred in passing a resolution Jan. 29 that condemned the Marines - rather than the war in Iraq - and some council members added that they felt they owed U.S. troops an apology as well the many Berkeley residents who were ashamed and offended by their position.

"To err is human but to really screw up it takes the Berkeley City Council," said council member Gordon Wozniak. "We failed our city. We embarrassed our city."