Now Who Could Have Seen THAT Coming?

Well, me actually. (Pause while I shine my MENSA badge.)

"Americans face sizable increases in their grocery bills this year as a boom in ethanol production diverts more corn from the nation's dinner table to its gas tank. Indeed, their pocketbooks could feel the pinch for years to come." The Wall Street Journal

See, here's the thing. If you take FOOD, and turn it into GAS, you are, by definition, reducing the amount of FOOD available. Because of the laws of supply and demand, prices go up.

When they first started talking about ethanol, I remember saying to several people that it was not a good idea to mess with our food supply to provide gas. And corn isn't just a food - it's THE food. It's in everything! (Well, as high fructose corn syrup it is, anyway. Plus we feed it to animals we eat.)

This whole thing is giving me a headache. Here's how my brain train is running:

1. We want to stop buying gas because the arabs are meanie-bobeanies and everybody's complaining about the high cost of gas. (not that I blame them.)
2. We look for an alternate source of energy.
3. We settle on a food crop, thus driving the cost of food way up on top of the cost of gas still being up. (And, BTW, the Wall Street Journal is estimating that food prices will go higher than they are now, and stay up for TEN YEARS.)
4. We get into a situation where people have to gas up their cars to get to work, but cannot afford to pay their bills, buy gas AND feed their families.
5. All of this causes a recession, or, God forbid, a depression.
6. Not only that, but (can I just remind you) that a food crop is vulnerable to weather patterns. Just ask the citrus farmers in Florida. So, when there's a bad year, a drought or whatever, and we are dependent on corn for fuel, what do we do then? We aren't addressing the basic problem - reliance on fuel.

You know, it's really sad that the only econ class I ever took was in high school (and I remember being really confused, largely because the teacher was a sweet old man who should have retired 10 years earlier) and I get this, why don't the people in charge? Why don't people have the sense God gave a squirrel?

Oh, and, in case you love irony, get this:

We used to use sugar in all the places where high fructose corn syrup gets used, right? Remember that? OK. Lots of that sugar was grown in the Philippines, which was an American protectorate. Well, when corporations realized they could use HCFS for way cheaper than sugar, lots of those sugar plantations shut down. Those areas of the Philippines have become hotbeds of Radical Islamists, because when a man doesn't work, he has all kinds of time to get indoctrinated and stuff.

Anyway, here are a couple of links:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117667991954270669-Oglbl5YepJfTYwDNgEWSt54OTB8_20070423.html?mod=regionallinks

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/29/news/economy/beef_prices/index.htm

Part Two of My Techhie Woe

So...when last we left our plucky reporter, she was exhausted and frustrated because she had:

1. Bought a useless Sony DVD/VCR which wasn't an "R"
2. Returned said useless piece of crap
3. Been told by the Salesdude at Worst Buy that she was hopelessly out of date in her choice of technology, and that the only way to remedy this terminal uncoolness was to spend upwards of 1K on new crap (which will be obsolete before you can say Jack Robinson)
4. Went to Target, Kmart and Walmart. Ended up with a nifty new combo TV/DVD/VCR by Magnavox for $170 that is supposed to fill all my needs.
5. Got sopping wet because I did all this in the rain. (Except for buying the original thing, because that was the day before).
6. Realized after trial and error that my nifty new TV/DVD/VCR wouldn't fit in my car. So I called The Clam, got her out of a nice warm bath and made her come rescue me.
7. Got home at 9 at night, cold, wet and hungry.
8. Posted my incredible frustration.

And now... the punchline!

The damn VCR part doesn't work!!! It will play a tape. Audio only. Well, yippee skippy.

So guess what The Clam gets to help me do next?

PIECE OF CRAP.

Another Sheryl Crow Post

So apparently now Sheryl says the whole "one sheet of TP per sitting" thing was a joke.

But I think that's a fib, and here's why: Go to the link I included on my original post and read the whole thing. Done already? Wow. You're a fast reader. Now let's test your comprehension skills.

Did you see what I saw when I read that? The entire blog is so achingly sincere. I mean, if this was the 1930s, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland would be telling the gang that they can surely raise enough money to repair the roof of the orphanage if they just threw a big hootenanny in Farmer Clem's barn. Golly gosh gee willikers. It's sooo... earnest.

Now, I'm not criticizing that necessarily. My point is that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of joking going on.

So, Sheryl, since you appear to be interwebs-impaired, here's a crash course in the blogosphere:

People cannot see your face when you type a blog entry. So, even if you are giggling hysterically as you type, don't automatically assume that everyone is going to get your joke. Therefore, there are methods of ensuring that people "get" your humor:

1. Type the word "grin" at the end of the funny. Like this... grin.
2. You could say "Sarcasm Off" (which indicates that sarcasm was "on" previously
3. You can make a winky face with only 3 keys: the semi-colon, the dash key, and the close parenthesis. Like so ;-)
4. Some modern computing machines will give you choices of funny faces to put into a document. They are called "emoticons." Some people don't like them, but I have it on good authority that those people are Nazis. grin.

See what I did there? I used one of my suggestions!

Try it for next time, mmmkay?

Canuck, DJ...any Techhies out there, HELP!!!

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

OK, jims and sals...either I'm crazy, or everyone else is.

My el cheapo combo DVD player SLASH VCR decided to give up the ghost a couple of days ago. So yesterday, armed with my nifty Consumer Reports info, I went to Best Buy (with The Clam) and purchased a highly rated Sony combo unit (for $95). I thought I was doing great! Sony's a reliable brand, and therefore unlikely to keel over after 18 months like my last piece of crap did (to be fair, I bought said piece of crap cheaply).

The whole thing is complicated by the fact that my TV is (gasp!) 10 years old!

The Horror!!!

You see, I have a larger problem. I am a cheapskate. Thrifty. Frugal. A Tightwad. Or, as I like to refer to it, A Careful Consumer. I am just old-fashioned enough to believe in getting your money's worth, not spending money like water, and all the rest of that stuff.

I know that, very soon, everything is "going digital". I also know that HiDef TVs ROCK! However, I don't see myself spending a grand for a TV. Hello? It's The Boob Tube, People! So my PLAN was to keep my current TV for a couple of more years, until we "go digital" and (hopefully) the price of the HiDefs drops a little, while at the same time they have worked out more of the bugs. Better product for cheaper, right?

Well, the patron saint of television (St. Rita of Cascia? - Tim, am I right there?) wasn't watching out for me.

My DVD/VCR keeled over THREE WEEKS after the new models came in, and my TV won't work with any of them without an adapter. Which wouldn't be the end of the world, but... remember the nifty $95 Sony? Minor detail...this is funny... the VCR doesn't R. That's right. They are marketing it as a Video Cassette Recorder, but it's actually a Video Cassette Player. Minor difference.

See, here's the thing: I don't watch a ton of TV, with a couple of exceptions. One of the big exceptions is TCM (Turner Classic Movies). I loooove old movies. And lots of the best ones are on during the day. So I have a choice: play hooky to watch a movie (in which case, I won't have my job for long) or tape the movie while I'm at work. Now, before you get all judgy, understand that a lot of the movies on TCM are not even AVAILABLE on video, so it's not like I'm trying to get something for free that I could buy. (Besides, I pay for the channel each month.) So, I watch TV, rent DVDs from Netflix, and watch movies that I have taped off TCM. That's IT.

You wouldn't think that what I want is so outmoded, would you? Well, you're WRONG! I might as well have asked for a new Victrola needle! One guy tried to sell me a $300 DVD recorder. (I informed him that I am NOT going to pay $300 for something that is likely to be obsolete in 2 years. Money doesn't grow on trees, you know?)

Anyway, it soon became clear to me that I was going to have to suck it up and buy a new TV. So, for $170, I bought a Magnavox TV/DVD/VCR combo. Yes, I know, combos aren't a good idea. Too flipping bad. Hopefully it will last me a couple of years at least.

Canuck, DJ, anybody: Advice? Comments? Is there a better, a cheaper way for me to do this? The TVs (not HiDef either) weren't a whole lot cheaper than what I bought. I still have the receipt, so, I can return it...

And, BTW, I went to Best Buy, Target and WalMart.

I don't understand how these corporations think that anyone can afford to replace their technology so often, as well as pay through the nose for cable, TiVo etc...

Is there a better option than what I chose?

Any feedback would be very helpful. If you find any typos, keep it to yourself. I'm not in the mood.