• Movie time

    Beth has been hounding me for a new movie for months. Me and Adam sat in front of the iMac for a while the other day and pieced this one together real quick. I’m hesitant to post it, seeing as how I come across as a complete fool (which is my nature), but so far it’s a hit at our house with the kids, and looking like a fool has never stopped me from posting my every thought here before.

    Oh well, despite my better judgement… here it is.

    You think peer pressure was tough has a child, kid pressure is much, much worse.

    As always, there’s more on the movie tab.

  • Power to the children!

    toiletseat.jpg

    Have you ever had a toilet seat break under you? I don’t mean a broken hinge or a couple screws coming loose, I mean the thick part of the seat cracking through – making two pieces where once there was one. It never happened to me before either… until this week. (Assuming of course, it hasn’t happened to you.)

    It led to Cheryl’s briefing on Wednesday morning…
    “John, your mission today – wether you accept it or not – is to pick up a new toilet seat for the kid’s bathroom.” I gave her my trademark mock-scowl before I wrote myself a note on my Palm (else I would have surely forgotten).

    All of this has very little to do with what I really wanted to tell you this evening… I just thought the post could use a little more flavor.

    Anyhoo, there’s a little hardware store just on the other side of our neighborhood, so I figured I’d just pop in on my way home after picking up Adam. I love giving my kids a sense of empowerment, so I told Adam he could pick out the seat we’d get. I didn’t even see the blue acrylic (almost transparent) seat with an ocean theme until he hauled it off the shelf and declared, “this one daddy!”

    I can’t say I would have picked it out on my own, but it’s growing on me. Best of all, Adam is extremely proud of his selection. It’s one more thing in the house that dad did with the kids, something that truly makes it OUR home. Well, that’s my hope anyway.

  • Passing gas

    Before I begin, I warn you that the standard disclaimer applies: it’s quite possible I don’t know what I’m talking about.

    Wheh! Now that I’m free of that burden (responsibility) I’m ready to rock and roll.

    It seems those pesky Democrats are up to no good again, making noise about ending tax breaks to oil companies in order to raise money for… get this… funding their own competition.

    It sounds like crazy talk, until you consider the money’s for renewable energy.

    What do the oil companies and their government surrogates have to say?

    The Bush administration, Republican lawmakers and big oil companies condemned the bill, which they said would raise fuel prices for consumers, discourage oil and gas exploration in the United States and unfairly discriminate against a single industry while other manufacturers continue to enjoy tax breaks.

    It makes you want to cry doesn’t it? Life’s just so unfair.

    Hey wait a minute. Isn’t their product kind of responsible (at least in part) for the environmental mess we’re in?

    And about those taxes… I’m sorry, aren’t global oil prices at record highs? Why is that? Is the price of oil higher this month because it’s costing them so much more money to extract and refine the same amount of oil they did last month? OR, is the price going up because of the increase in worldwide demand?

    No wonder they’ve been raking in the dough these last couple years. It seems to me they get to make a LOT more money with what I assume is largely the same production costs. Is it so wrong to ask they to fork over a SMALL percentage of their windfall (which it seems you could argue has little to do with business savvy – and everything to do with luck) to help fund renewable energy, and fix the mess they helped us make? If I’m not mistaken, the definition of profit is money you make after expenses. If the net effect of the proposed tax increase is lower profits (but still greater than zero), they wouldn’t really have to charge consumers more for fuel, would they? They’d still be PROFITING from the sale of oil.

    Their Christmas bonus might suffer a little, along with the value of their stock portfolio. I’ll try not to lose any sleep over it.

    Supporters of the measure noted that rescinded tax breaks would amount to less than 2 percent of the profits of the five biggest oil companies.

    It’s more than possible that I’m missing something here. I really want to understand. Give it another shot… go out and win this one for the Gipper!

    “The administration must strongly oppose” the legislation, the Office of Management and Budget said Tuesday, “because the bill would use the tax code to target tax increases on a specific industry in a way that will lead to higher energy costs to U.S. consumers and businesses.” The OMB said that if the bill were sent to the president in its current form, “his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.”

    Nope, that doesn’t do anything for me. (see above)

    I kind of like a phrase a blogger I admire used a couple days ago: “I call bullshit.” (I hope he doesn’t mind if I take it out for a spin.)

    —

    By the way, I love these little hypothetical arguments I have with myself. I get to rig it any way I want – and I usually get to win! It kind of makes up for all the arguments I lose at home.