Bloating Gas Pain

I have kept track of my gas consumption and prices since November of last year, to chart not only what I spent, but how much I got for it, and how many miles I was getting per gallon.

December 21 of last year, gas was $3.19/gal in the state of Washington.
$40 bought me 12.46 gallons.

Tuesday afternoon, I put in $40, and got 10.99 gallons, at $3.63/gal, an increase of $.44/gal. Gas has not improved in quality, color, taste, nor abdominal prominence. It's still gas.

Now, at this rate, gas will be consistenly over $4/gal by Labor Day. Supply vs. Demand shows us something important here.

If we have less of a demand (buying, using, filling bottles to light&heave at buses of clowns), the supply loses it's value, and the price drops.

FRIDAY is supposed to be one of those "Gas Out! Holiday!" things, where people aren't supposed to buy any gas for an entire day.

IDIOTS.

You don't break addiction by not taking drugs all day Friday, only to take a freeze on Saturday morning. On Saturday, you get up, you use something other than drugs, like exercise or hugs or prayer or naps, and stay away from drugs. Now you have 2 days off the dope. Sunday, maintain, do the same thing. Take a walk. Ride the bus. Ride that bike.

Gasoline is expensive on the West Coast because we don't have a near-by refinery to work it for us, and since we have the Alaska pipeline, you'd think we'd have that in place. But who wants a refinery next to their kid's "School For The Relatively Normal"? Not here, in Washington, one of the most heavily-taxed, under-waxed, gluten-free pancake-stacked states this side of Saudi Arabia.

Car-pool, thumb it, hoof it, jog it, wheel it. If you can, lay off the gas.

Take Me Home

My Blog About My Dad

Humor, The Sixth Sense

Humor, like Style, but not Substance, is a Trait one has. Perhaps like an odor, if one were to ask my lovely wife, who announces her entrance to most rooms with "It stinks in here, Geoffrey."

I feel that people are Funny the way some are Tall. Born to have a certain amount of it the world will experience, you don't really know how Funny somebody is until you get in a situation with them where it comes out. Like Height, Humor is best experienced when somebody's reaching for something, like a rebound or the sombrero-shaped chip/salsa bowl. You can't tell how huge Shaquille O'Neal is until you're standing next to his dong at the urinal. And you can't tell how funny a person is unless you actually have a gauge of "Funny vs. Not Funny."

So here's where I am going with this:

Today, I was on a conference call with a number of people who I think have a pretty good sense of humor. They would "get," if not really "adore," Mitch Hedberg.

"Rice is great, especially if you're hungry, and want 2,000 of something."

"I have an intense dislike of protests, but I don't know how to show it."

So I'm on the call, and I do a little Roll Call to make sure that I know who's all there. At the end of the list (we have an application that shows everyone who's dialed in, so I read the names of everyone whom I could see had dialed in), I said...


"Okay, I think I got everyone."


Met with silence.




THEN, I say, "Please announce yourself if you're not here."
Met with about a 3-Mississippi of silence...
Then...

"Uh, yeah, they can't say they're not here if they're not here."


... huh... ya don't say... well then...


And thus ends another experiment of injecting humor into the workplace. I fully expect that little exchange to end up in a Reader's Digest. If I put myself in the role of the guy leading the call, I'll look like an ass for explaining that Yep, not being there precludes one from being able to speak in their absence. But if I say somebody else did it, I could be $400 richer.


When at a coffee stand/shack/establishment, asking for "room" with your drink means they don't fill it all the way so that you can post-load it with as much Splenda as your spleen can turn into bloody bits of... okay, sorry... It's the space at the top. "Room For Cream," a great name for a dairy, btw.

I once asked a barista, "You guys ever run out of room for people's drinks, when somebody asks for it?" That got quite the hearty tilt of the head and a twitched eyebrow in the vein of "Don't hit on me, fatty."


The kid behind her laughed his ass off. Barista only said "Like, on the counter where we put them?" The kid behind her explained, "No, like the space at the top of the drinks."


By then the joke, like my hope of ever being as widely accepted as Dane Cook, slid off the counter, to the floor, and underneath some fart-stain's Vans.

So there ya go.
We don't all laugh at the same things all the time, but the Funny is always happening. You may just be too short, or tall, to see it.

Last example...

Why is the guy on the left wearing a watch?
Where does he have to be? Ear doctor? Elephant try-outs? This is why you have to start eating Organic, folks.

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Take Me Home

My Blog About My Dad