Author Archives: Dick

I Was Right

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Again. The Obamanation announced it will release 30 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserves and has another 30 million barrels pledged by our energy partners. Two million barrels per day for a month. And they can do it again next month and the month after if prices don’t drop enough.

It is to “make up for Libyan oil,” administration officials say.

Bwahahahahahahahahah hah ha. And hah.

It’s not a hail Mary to jumpstart the economy.

It’s not to fill in the gaps in our oil supply. There is plenty of oil.

It’s not even to ease the summer driving season.

But it is to drive speculators out of the market. See, if the price at the pump drops for 90 days, the third quarter Cost of Living calculations look flat again.

At the beginning of June, I said the Obamanation would try to get gas prices down to $2.47/gallon for July, August, and September, the “window” for Social Security’s 2012 COLA calculations. Artificial Cost of Living Adjustments are a free tax on the back of American seniors and the gummint needs more money. Way to go, Mr. Obama.

Premte Peeves

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I didn’t like Firefox’ new display skin on 3.6.x and I didn’t like losing ImgLikeOpera so I bit the bullet and installed Firefox 5.0.

Version 5.0 for Windows has a new look,
super speed, and even more awesomeness!

I don’t like Firefox’ new display skin but I have ImgLikeOpera back.

Firefox reported that FeedFilter (the lovely Facebook fixer) is incompatible with version 5 despite the Mozilla add-on page indicating it works fine. I updated directly from Russell Gilbert’s delicious Chocolate Software. The Skype extension doesn’t work but I don’t care, as long as Skype works.

The big issue is a small one. Firefox changed the display on 3.6.x so the default page display (images, fonts and so on) is T-I-N-Y. Emphasis added. The menu bar, bookmarks, and other operating controls are all smaller, too. Like 4pt in 1920 x 1080 resolution. That’s T-I-N-Y.

I hoped that was a quirk and that moving to Tuesday’s release 5.0 would take me back. Nope. And to make it more interesting, the implementation plunks a second and third icon on the task bar when the program is running and you open a window or two. I just ended up with three copies of FF open.

There is undoubtedly a way to fix all that but I haven’t found it yet.

It is wise to fix things that are broke. It is unwise to fix things that aren’t. Word.

Sports Are Gay

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I’ve been visiting Phoenix for a bit. Phoenix is the hottest major city in North America. Period. This past week has been unnaturally hot. Naturally, when a friend offered a couple of tickets to a Diamondbacks game, I jumped at the chance.

Chase Field Warning They opened the roof on Chase Field. 101° Outside. They opened the roof.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are a Major League Baseball team in the National League Western Division. Since their arrival as an expansion team in 1998, the D-Backs have won one World Series and four National League Western Division Championshops.

Nancy is now five for five in game lore. She picked Jimmy Johnson to win the Sprint Cup race she attended with Anne. She picked the Giants to win the spring training game she attended with Don. She picked the Giants to win the game we attended this week. She picked the Suns over the champion Celtics in a basketball game she attended with her dad. And she helped the Arizona Rattlers arena foo’ball team score when she caught their game with TUFKAS.

Chase FieldI, on the hand, maintained my own record; no team I root for has ever won a game I have attended. I think that even counts for games I’ve watched on television. My high school buddy Jon Matlack would have become a 20 game winner had I stopped watching sooner.

See, that’s two reasons I think sports are gay.

Huh? you say.

Bear with me. Sports are the big macho guy stuff but Nancy is most assuredly a girl. When a girl can outdo all the guys around her, that must make the games, well, girly.

Everyone knows a girly man is gay. Nancy’s great scores bring statistics to this story. Statisticians are gay, too.

Softlan UltraThere’s more.

Ever been to a soccer game? Bunch of guys running around playing group grab ass whenever anyone scores a goal. Even the advertisers think wrestling is that way. And don’t even start on figure skating.

There’s a reason the Greeks ran naked Olympics.

Then there are the fans. Fans are like teenage girls memorizing the shoe size (RBIs) and eye color (AB) and innings pitched (IP) of their heart throbs. Gay men are the most dedicated of fans.

Chase Field SeatsMost of the Giants and D-Backs players gave the signs but the Giants’ powerful left fielder Cody Ross simply has to be gay.-1- I watched him do the usual dance in the batters box. Stroking his bat. Tapping his dancing shoes. Wiggling. Adjusting his cup just so. All that is pretty normal. It was the dip that convinced me. See after the gyrations, after the adjustments, he squatted down and popped back up at home plate. A dip.

And here you thought I meant the can o’ dip.

Gay sports is a bit of ADHD from the important topic of the day: how dipping gas prices are a conspiracy to hold down the Social Security Cost of Living Allowance. We got on riff about it at the ballpark. The Giants fan in the orange t-shirt in front of us was not amused.

Editor’s note: one part of this story was satire. Mr. Ross and his wife live most of the year in Scottsdale, Arizona, with their two young children. I do not really think he is gay. The rest is true.