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 Tales from real life |
| Well, if they're not true, they oughta be! |
Occasionally, this topic is suggested in the WDC newsfeed: Name something that you're simply happy with... For me, that would be my 2008 Mazda Miata convertible. I started looking for a convertible in 2010, after driving a 'pop-top' Honda Del Sol for a couple of years. That car had been gifted to me by my older sister. It felt a little tired at 180,000 miles, but I enjoyed the (almost) open-air experience with the top removed. And the engine was still running well, so I regifted the Del Sol to my daughter and told my wife that I needed a real convertible for myself (Liz drove the Del Sol another 30K miles). There were a number of desirable cars available at the time, even after I disqualified the four-door models as too big and the Lotus Elise as too exotic (but super cool). I considered the Saturn Sky, Toyota MR2, Honda S2000, BMW M3, even the FIAT Spider. They were all attractive cars with the top down, but less so with the ragtop up. I decided that I wanted a power retractable hardtop. That left only the Mazda Miata in my price range. But that was okay, because Mazda builds reliable cars that get good gas mileage. The Miata may be a bit short on horsepower, but it provides a ton of fun. And a Miata with the hardtop up is almost as pretty as it is with the hardtop down. I got lucky in 2011 when a low-mileage Miata PRHT model showed up at a nearby Toyota dealership. The paint is Stormy Blue Mica, and it has the upgraded suspension package with 17-inch wheels, Bilstein shocks, and a limited slip rear differential. In other words, Zoom-Zoom! The Toyota salesman told me it was a trade-in from a guy who married a woman with 2 kids and needed the interior space of a RAV4. The salesman was also motivated by the cold February rain to move that convertible quickly. So, I got exactly the car I wanted, with only 4300 miles on it, for $10,000 dollars less than new. And I've been simply happy with it for the last fourteen years. Something I haven’t been happy with is an arthritic left knee. The reason I finally gave up my motorcycle and bought the Miata is that my knee no longer felt solid enough to handle riding. And it’s only gotten worse over the years. I've seen doctors, I've used lots of aspirin and, recently, I've begun to contemplate a knee replacement. So, a couple of weeks ago I saw an orthopedist to discuss the alternatives. He insisted on a new series of X-rays and determined that I have advanced arthritis. Well, duh. Then he drained 30cc of fluid from the knee and gave me a cortisone shot. He told me I could proceed with a knee replacement whenever I was ready, but the cortisone might allow me to postpone an operation for another year or two. I can hardly believe how well it worked! Why didn't I try that years ago? I started walking normally again immediately. The sun was shining brightly as I left the clinic, and so was my attitude. I felt like a kid with a new toy. I felt so good that I got a bit overexuberant on the drive home. I love cranking up the tunes and going through the gears in my Miata. I like going fast, but I admit that I'm slightly less skilled than the average grand prix driver. I missed a shift and hit the gas in fifth when I meant to be in third. The RPMs went zoom, but the car did not. Uh, oh, what's that acrid burning smell? Yep, I fried the clutch. The car still drove okay (as long as I didn't accelerate too hard), but like my arthritic knee, I knew it would only get worse with time. And unlike the knee, there's no quick fix to make the clutch feel better. So, I took the Miata in for a new clutch. Things had changed since my last service appointment. They have this new-fangled thing called the internet now. The Mazda shop sent me a link to a video of the mechanic going over my car. The first thing he said when opening the hood was that it smelled like burnt clutch. Not a surprise. Then he looked at the fluids. The engine oil was okay by mileage but overdue by the calendar. The differential, transmission, power steering, and brake fluid had all been changed at the 40,000-mile service, but that was eleven years ago. So, I told the shop to bring all the scheduled maintenance up to date while they were at it. I haven’t put a lot of miles on the Miata since my retirement in 2016, but time marches on. The mechanic looked at my tires and pronounced them expired. How could that be? They had less than 20,000 miles on them since, uh, 2014. I’d never heard the term expired used for tires before, but he pointed out several places where the twelve-year old tread was starting to chunk off little bits of rubber. Adding four new tires to the bill made a total of ouch! But I love that car, and the new clutch feels even better than my lubricated knee. So, even after the big bill, if you ask me to name something that I'm simply happy with . . . It would still be my 2008 Mazda Miata convertible. Zoom-Zoom! |
There may be political ideas worth dying for, but there none that are worth killing for. This week, Donald Trump expanded his campaign for world dominance by ordering the murder of dozens of Houthi rebels. Do you know who the Houthis are? Where they live? What they're rebelling against? Or why the U.S. military conducted an air strike against them? Neither do I, but we're in good company. No one at the White House knows either. The Houthis are generally anti-American, but they didn't commit any specific offense to trigger the strike. They're an irritant to the Yemeni government, but they don't present much of a threat to the U.S. So, what's the deal? Well, their dead are intended partly to serve as an object lesson for Iran. We know this because subtlety is not Donald Trump's strong suit. He publicly boasted that killing Houthi rebels was a 'signal' to the Iranian government. Some signal. It takes a truly evil person to abuse their official power to the extent of murder. But the killings weren't really about Iran either, they were primarily an ego boost for Donald J. Trump. Imagine how powerful that nasty old man feels to wield the Godlike power of death. I'll bet it really stiffens his little mushroom. Everyone will have to take him seriously if he kills a bunch of people, right? Adolph Hitler and Mao Zedong aren't mocked as pathetic losers. And the American news media will surely get the message and start giving him positive news coverage. Or else a lot more people might have to be killed. I mean look what happened to the Houthis. But being Trump means never doing the right things and never doing things right. Acting president Musk took the shine off Donald's triumph by pointing out that it's the unelected bureaucrats (like himself and Pete Hegseth) who do the actual killing. Despite pulling the strings, Donald Trump remains a pathetic loser. Just a figurehead to be exploited by those who wield the real power. |
Earning My Derision (to the tune of Losing My Religion by R.E.M.) Your lies are bigger They're bigger than you And you are not nice The lengths that you will go to The disdain in your eyes Oh, please, don't say that stuff You're fucking up That's you at the rally That's you in the spotlight Sowing your dissension I try to withstand your lies And I don't know if I can do it Oh, no, you've said too much You never could shut up I can always hear you sneering Your insults are meant to sting You always play the bully Every moment Of every waking hour You choose to drag me down I try to find some good in you Like a hurt, lost and blinded MAGA fool Oh, no, I've lost too much I've been set up Consider this Consider this, the hint of the century Consider this, your whip That brought me to my knees, failed What if all your fantasies come Flailing down Oh, yes, you're fucking up I can always hear you sneering Your insults are meant to sting You always play the bully And I can only scream All I have are screams That's you at the rally That's you in the spotlight Earning my derision I try to withstand your lies And I don't know if I can do it Oh, no, you've said too much You never could shut up I can always hear you sneering Your insults are meant to sting You always play the bully And the pain won't go away Try, cry, why try? That’s my nightmare scream Just a scream Just a scream, scream |
This was my entry for the February 2025 round of the The Humorous Poetry Contest  .Knock, Knock, Madame “Knock, knock,” I cry in urgent pain. “Who could it be?” you ask again. “Tis I, madame, let me explain.” “Begone, strange man, you plead in vain.” “I do not wish to be a bore, but lift the latch, I must implore.” “I’ve opened once, so why do more?” “Because my damn foot’s in the door!” When I was a kid, I would never have dropped an f-bomb. My mom would have beat my butt with her yardstick and then washed my mouth out with Ivory soap (99 44⁄100% pure). To be fair, she was actually much more kind than strict. You could count the number of times she used the yardstick on one hand and the soap sessions on the other. It must have been effective, though, because I rarely swear or use rough language. Beyond an occasional dammit when I stub a toe or hammer my thumb, of course. Nobody's perfect, and even 99 44⁄100% pure is a tall order. My generally polite usage is especially surprising because my dad was a real pro with vulgar invective. He learned early from cowboys, miners, and loggers, then honed his skill with a four-year stint in the navy. Dad could swear fluently and at length without being boring or repetitive (unlike most stand-up comics). But that was his outside voice. He (mostly) refrained when he was in the house or with his family in public. None of us kids ever even tried to match his example. We thought it was clever to get away with saying things like 'dam water' or 'hell-o operator'. Oh, days of innocence lost! One opportunity for childish hilarity was this knock, knock joke: Knock, knock! Who's there? Madame Madame who? My damn foot's stuck in the door! My poem is intended as an homage to that old joke. I agree that the last line is strained, but I decided to remain true to the way I remember the punchline. |
A couple of years ago, there was near panic as a Chinese spy balloon drifted across the entire continental U.S before being shot down by heroic U.S. aviators. Apologists for the communist regime claimed it was merely a 'weather balloon'. They said it was no different from the dozens of balloons released every year by our own National Weather Service. I'm not so sure that it was an innocent science mission. That balloon came within hundreds of miles of several sensitive U.S. sites. It had a number of so-called meteorological devices that could have gathered vital information about rainfall, windspeed. or even reservoir levels. The only thing that prevented a more serious data breach was that it had no directional control. Thank God for Asian drivers! But there is a much larger conspiracy being perpetrated on the American public by even more nefarious agents of a foreign government. Imagine a fleet of millions of high-tech spy vehicles roaming across America with cameras, microphones, radar, and GPS tracking. And many of these interlopers have been given permission to access secure government parking areas. They're even waved through checkpoints at military bases! It may seem inconceivable, but the co-president of the United States, an unelected bureaucrat, is the one behind the conspiracy. And he's given the 'elected' president a $300 million bribe to look the other way as he undermines America. I'm talking about Tesla spy craft, of course. We know for a fact that every one of Elon's electric vehicles is connected to the internet. Collectively, they can upload Terabytes of sensitive data to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service every day. They can listen and record every word uttered in their vicinity. They have millions of camera eyes monitoring our every move. And here's another chilling fact. Every one of these self-driving cars is capable of piloting itself to a classified target to gather secret intelligence. No driver needed! And, very soon, they'll be able to contact Vladimir Putin directly through the Starlink satellite constellation. Russia, are you listening? |
Selling your soul only feels wrong while you have one. Once it's gone, you don't miss it at all. - The Gospel of Trump I called the university and booked some time on their scanning electron microscope today. I wanted to see if I could find some respect for President Trump. No go. I felt bad about it for a minute and then I thought, Wait, maybe I should look at him instead of me. If I can detect any reason at all to respect him, then I might feel better. I set the microscope to its maximum magnification and looked for compassion, kindness, or humility. Nope, nope, and nope. Well, Christian virtues aren't everything. Maybe I can find courage, integrity, or wisdom. Not a trace. There has to be something positive, what about humor, intelligence, or good looks? Not even a blip. Then the view became murky, and I realized that the lens was completely fouled with uttered bullshit. I shook my head in disappointment and left. My time slot was about done, anyway. |
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