Standing On Boxes

Would anyone be surprised if I mentioned that gas went up another 40 cents/gallon today? 30 cents between 8AM and noon, another 10 cents before 6PM. So… 3.29/gallon for premium on the corner… for a total increase of 62 cents/gallon since Monday evening.
(I wonder how high it’ll go tomorrow? )

I’ve got enough gas to last until after Labor Day (since I’m not going anywhere)… hopefully the pipelines and refineries will be running again by then and the price will go down.
(Only 10% of the US refinery capacity was affected by the hurricane. BUT the pipelines and the ports affected are what is really causing problems… and the price gouging of course.)

And Brother George looked down from on high (25,000+ feet in Air Force One – in fact) and said “This disaster will make the American people better. Have a barrel of oil to go.” And there was much rejoicing.

Not!

Of course, he didn’t lose his home or any members of his family the other day. And when was the last time he actually had to pump gas? And pay for it?

Okay… according to The Houston Chronicle a few regional fuel distribution centers are running low or are out of things like gas. And Tennessee is one of them. That explains the gas prices around here. Partially. In Georgia, the governor has put into effect an “anti price gouging” law after a bunch of people started panicking in Atlanta and gas prices went through the roof. They’re saying – If you don’t have to buy gas… don’t. There’s enough for normal demand… not for panic-buying.

Random thought… got a spare room? Room for someone from the New Orleans area to stay in until the city is fixed and they can go home?

It probably isn’t a good idea to offer a bed/piece of floor to random Joe Refugee that you don’t know… you’ll be stuck with them for months… and who knows what kind of person you would end up with… but it sounds like a perfect task/job for one of those “Match Making” services/websites… once things settle down a bit down there… and the refugee types would also need protection from the “disaster predator” types… (Until then… think about donating to the Red Cross/Salvation Army (the two groups I trust to actually help people in a crisis (My ex’s family is ‘Salvation Army’ (ministers and such) and they are what I would call ‘good people’ — fairly benign as religious groups go. IMHO anyway. If you don’t mind working with people of the Christian Missionary persuasion.)

Me? Would I volunteer space/room? If it was someone I knew/trusted and got along with… and my rental agreement allowed that kind of thing… and whomever could pitch in something (I can’t afford to feed/clothe another person… all my spare cash goes to the ex for child support.)

News/reporting from the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

The Mountain Dew (Warning: Flash/audio heavy website!!!) guys at PepsiCo. like to experiment with different flavors. Right now they have:

• The standard “lemony” traditional stuff (I think it’s kind of like lemon. Never really thought about the flavor.)
• Some kind of orange flavored variant called “Livewire”
• Some red stuff – tastes sort of like “Tropical Punch” – called “Code Red”
• Some purple/grape-like stuff called “Pitch Black”
• Something called “Baja Blast” – that you can only get at some fast-food place I don’t frequent. They say it’s ‘tropical lime’
• Diet versions of the above. (Ick!)

The purple stuff claims to be “limited availability”. They didn’t produce it for very long last year. Now they have a new version… “Pitch Black II” — the purple stuff+ some sour flavor. Going to have to stock up on it… It is actually worth buying… the sour part makes it stand out… unlike the orange which is kind of nasty (And the less said about diet sodas the better).

We’re far enough from the ocean here (Knox-vegas, TN) that we usually only get a lot of wind and rain from hurricanes that clobber the coast (Gulf and Atlantic).

Hurricane Katrina is heading inland… it’s to the west of us… closer to Nashville than here… we’re just getting some heavy winds and a little rain and a bunch of trees have lost branches… and there was a tornado warning…

Seems kind of strange considering how badly Louisiana and Mississippi got hit…

Addendum: The news from Louisiana / Mississippi ? Not even remotely good. The water in New Orleans keeps rising… apparently some parts of the city are so bad that they won’t show it on the news (Or maybe they can’t get to those parts yet?) And rumor has it that a large number of city residents didn’t have time to leave (And we’re not even talking about the ones who thought they knew better and decided to stay when they could have gotten out.). So… we could end up with large (For the US anyway) death tolls after all.

Where’s George?

It was a given that gas prices would go up today. Hurricane Katrina wiped out a few oil refineries in the Gulf yesterday/today while drowning New Orleans (and the surrounding areas). The same thing happens every time a hurricane wanders into the oil fields.

Unfortunately, that killed what little price stability we were starting to see in pump prices this past week.

On Monday morning, gas at the local was $2.47/gal for regular (and don’t forget that premium (required by the Bavarian engine/gadget in my red buggy) is usually 20 cents more per gallon… )

This morning it was up to $2.49

Tonight… when I got home from work… it was up to $2.69 (Ouch!) for regular. At least that’s what the sign said. Fortunately, for me anyway, the pump was set to $2.59/$2.69/$2.79 — so either the sign price is for tomorrow or someone forgot to change the pumps.

Could have saved myself half a dollar if I’d filled up this morning instead of tonight… oh well… but at least I now have a full tank. That’ll last me for the next 2 weeks (I hope).

Went shopping after work… bad idea… I was hungrier than normal… spent more than I should have on junk/treats…

Had a hankerin’ for donuts… the white powdered sugar kind that aren’t even remotely good for you… ended up buying a box of mini powdered donuts… I’ll be surprised if they last a day…

Gas prices on the corner haven’t changed in almost a week… must be a demand thing now that the local schools and colleges are back in session for the fall around here (Personally — I think it’s a bit early. When I was growing up… in the backwoods of rural NY — we didn’t start the school year until after Labor Day. (And we actually had a reason to use all of our “snow days”). The T starts Jr. High tomorrow (But she lives in another state up north).)

I’m expecting it to go up in the next day or two… thanks to that hurricane that is currently demolishing the oil production/infrastructure in the Gulf coast/ Louisiana/Mississippi.

(Some OPEC minister says the increase in oil prices isn’t their fault — he blames global politics and refinery capacity problems. Says OPEC is pumping more than enough to meet demand. Says $70 would be outlandish if it were a oil supply issue.)

A poet in every home…

The Bishop

“You have one of those no claim policies.”

Okay… Monty Python on BBC America…. it’s been a while since I’ve seen the show… still funny…

Now at 2.0

Not a single problem… not sure what I think about the web browser yet… seems to work but the keyboard interface is a bit lame.

A new show on the DISCOVERY cable channel – “Top Gear” – a British show about cars…

Between segments they have a studio audience… strange…

Today’s (first) episode…

Not getting anywhere with any of my fics… so I thought I would write a random ficlet that occurred to me yesterday… just to get the brain cells moving again… a Buffy meets Luna Lovegood story – “The Bandersnatch”. It shouldn’t be very long. Totally unrelated to any other story I’m writing… just for fun.

The goal is partially to “find” Luna’s voice for a part of one of my other stories she’ll appear in… She really isn’t a fleshed out character until HP books 5 and 6… I’m going to have to go back and re-read the sections she is in… maybe. I don ‘t expect this story to really pin her down…

Tonight: Mail Call

The Gunny (R. Lee Ermey) takes a WW II M2 armored half-track out for a spin… (Looks like it was the WW II equivalent of a Humvee)

Why can’t I have a job like that?

Can anyone explain the break-dancing scene in “Flash Dance“? Was it there for any reason other than an ’80′s attempt at: “Look at how cool we are with the hip, modern culture.”

Oh… well it was on Bravo tonight… why would I watch it (now)?

Other than to see how cute Jennifer Beals was 20 years ago? (I was still a teenager when it came out… I can’t believe she is actually several years older than I am… that actually makes me feel old).

At my age… she’s the only reason to even think about watching this movie… the simplistic plot and 80′s-ness of it are more of a turn-off than anything else. And the cradle-robbing boss/boyfriend? Can we say “Ick!” ? (The same thing that turns me off of a lot of Buffy/Giles fics…

FoodTV show tonight… a contest between ‘chuck wagon’ cooks. A status thing apparently. Not a lot of money in it – compared to some of those barbecue cooking contests.

The contestants get a “mystery box” full of ingredients (the basics like flour, potatoes plus some semi-random meat -and who knows what else.).

All the food is cooked over wood fires. And they also get judged on their campsite authenticity.

Bought a new game (yes, finally – SONY doesn’t make much money from me from their video game systems (but much more than Microsoft…) – The only reason I bought a PS2 was to play Tomb Raider. The PSP was a pseudo-impulse/cool gadget buy – I think SIMH would be a cool hack as soon as there is real keyboard support.)).

Decided to back up my saved games — so I bough a larger memory stick ( 128MB – not really large, but good enough for the few games I have).

Thought I would use the built-in copy method. Spent 45 minutes doing it…

What’s a stick swap? That is where you put in the source memory stick, the PSP copies to it, you take that out and put in the destination memory stick and the PSP copies to it. So… 2 ‘insert stick’ actions per “swap”

Save game size? I don’t know if these are the same no matter what level… but I’m assuming so…

I’m not going to do it that way ever again…

Oh… the game? Death Jr.. (No opinion yet – I just got it) – Single player only… and they have a review on their web site dated next week… I think someone jumped the gun or they forgot that not everyone sets their calendar a week ahead like all of the entertainment magazines.