Hope and Change - I hope I get to keep the change

Last night's speech at the Obamopolis was pretty much the same formula followed by both parties for the last forty years. It's tried and true, and they've learned it well and will not depart from it.

It's also meaningless. If you found yourself inspired by it, you really need to investigate this thing called reality.

In the first place, he cannot keep any of those promises. It is literally impossible at this point to either lower taxes or increase social spending. How in the name of all that is sane can we do both? The economy in this country is stretched to the breaking point. Eight years ago, I would have said "he can't do that without printing more money and saddling us with inflation." But that is already happening to finance the war in Iraq. To squeeze any more out of that sponge, we would have to go into hyperinflation, which cannot last - just ask Mexico, or any other pitiful country that has tried it. You didn't know your dollar is worth less? Bucky, it lost 14% of its value last year. Why do you think the price of groceries went up so much?

We can't raise taxes because that will trigger the rest of the recession that we've been warding off with garlic and silver crosses. I won't use the D word (depression), because that would cause widespread panic.

We can't borrow the money, because we've already borrowed about all we can from our friends in China. Yes, folks, we are in debt to our eyeballs to the only major communist nation on Earth.

And yet we're going to start paying for college educations for anyone who wants one? That's not even close to being possible. We need - or rather, our government needs - every filthy little penny it can scrounge off the Walmart parking lot, just to avoid bankruptcy. Ron Paul is not the only politician who understood this, but he is the only one willing to tell us the truth about it. The others keep assuring us that, yes, we can! Folks... we can't!

I want to be sure that you noticed the Surely we can agree part of the speech. You know, we may differ on abortion, but surely we can agree that abortions should be as few in number as possible. This is a technique that has been developed over the years, and it's absolutely necessary for this kind of speech.

You see, most of the public doesn't pay any attention to politics. They will hear only two speeches that have to do with politics, and those are the State of the Union address, and the Nominating Acceptance speeches. When a politician makes either of those speeches, he must keep his voting base comfortable with what he says, and yet somehow make every one of those politically sleepy voters hear what he wants to hear. So he must never take a bold stand in those speeches, even if his stand is already well known to those who have paid any attention at all. So he says "surely we can agree," and those folks out there hear "I agree with you about abortion, war, taxes, spending, and your mom, and anything else you care about."

So you see Obama's deception? So you'll vote Republican? Wait til you see McCain's speech. He will do the same thing when he accepts his nomination. He'll be as humble as Obama was, if not more, and he will promise tax relief, fiscal responsibility, and new programs.

It remains a mystery to me how someone can declare that he is going to lower taxes for 95% of us, and be believed, and then tell you he is going to create a truckload of new entitlements, and again be believed! I think my problem is that I continue to overestimate the intelligence of the average voter - something that Obama or McCain will never be guilty of.

Rain drops

I like rain. I like the sound of thunder, especially rolling thunder. It's like having a really good outdoor surround sound.

But I especially like rain because it's so much better for the lawn and garden than the water from my yard hose. Plus, I don't have to pay for it. Plus, it cools everything down so that my electric bill goes down for a while.

I am alone this weekend, because GA is off on a business trip to Louisiana (motto: a corrupt, yet delightfully unrefined government), so I'm here taking care of the cat. On a whim, I took the pickup out for a short drive to the nearby fruit market to buy two tomatoes and an avocado. Avocados are always good here, for some reason. Rich, smooth, creamy. And I made my entire lunch out of it - not bad for $1.89, eh?


Now, I can make an awesome guacamole, but if it's just me I like to do the simple 'cado prep. You just cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, and fill the seed cavity with lime or lemon juice. You can actually eat it out of the skin, but if you're at home, just scoop it out into a bowl. Add salt to taste, mash it up, and serve on crackers. Yum!

Now, for some time I have made it my practice to stick all avocado seeds into the ground in my garden. Sure, most of them have been irradiated to control pests, and I have no problem with that, but once in a while you get a virile young avocado seed, and it will sprout. I did this in Wichita Falls and then again in Midland, and they look kind of neat just sticking up out of the middle of the black eyed peas.



But here in Houston, I have the added hope that it doesn't freeze here every year. The plant could actually become a tree. Now that could be problematic if I get caught, because I don't think the avocado tree is on the approved list in our HOA. But I figure by the time it gets tall enough that my neighbors will even see it, it will be too late for anybody to object. Besides, each of my neighbors has a yappy dog, which is against the HOA rules, too, unless you keep them quiet, which is impossible.

So before I even mixed in the lemon juice, I took the seed out to the backyard and shoved it into a small area I had prepared with some extra sand and compost, because avocado trees like good drainage, and we have mostly clay here. It started raining within five minutes of coming back inside, and that's a Very Good Thing™ when you're sticking seeds in the ground.

And then, with the rain pouring down, and the rolling thunder playing on the Outside channel, in 5.1 DTS, I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled down the list, and called my favorite cousin Ginger, in Kentucky. I love chatting with her; she always makes me laugh, and the smile lasts for at least an hour after we hang up.

So I had my walk, I had my avocado, I had good company (electronically, and that counts), and I can still hear the rolling thunder outside. Life is good.

Best hurricane ever

Those of you in west Texas are now getting rain, if you're going to, from the little hurricane we sent you from the gulf coast. We had a little flooding from it, though the news folks had to look for it to get some good video. Here in Sienna Plantation, all we got out of it was a good, rainy day. I wouldn't even call it a soaker, but it did mean I could postpone watering my yard for another couple of days.

GA got a day off out of it, because the area where she works is subject to flooding, and even though it didn't actually flood this time, when it does flood it causes some major problems, traffic wise.

So we stayed home, and decided to use the day to pack up the two Sprint phones we had to return to that brilliantly staffed organization.

You see, she is provided this Blackberry by her employers, who also provide her data services via the Sprint people. And the opportunity arose to allow the employees to add phone service to their Blackberry devices. Great idea. So we figured it was time to switch from AT&T to Sprint for the sake of efficiency.

So they assign this guy to facilitate all these new Sprint customers in their new phone service, and I asked him to recommend a phone for me. I told him I didn't want data, really, but let's get me a good phone. He recommended the Instinct™ and I had to agree it looked like a really cool phone. It has a touch screen, a virtual qwerty keyboard, and other features for the 21st century.



He said that I was almost certain to decide that I wanted the data plan with it, because it is such a cool phone with the data plan. I sort of thought he might be right, and according to what he said, I could add the data later if I wanted for only $30 a month. Awesome!

So after discussing it with him, we decided to go with the $99 a month plan, which included two phones, and the third phone (for my in-laws, who wouldn't otherwise bother with a cell phone) for an additional $10.

And it is a Cool Phone. I loved that phone. But when we got the first bill, they wanted me to send them $228 and some coins. Wm's heart stops for a few beats. Wm is Scottish. That means cheap.

So I called billing, to discuss the matter calmly. I told the nice lady that this wasn't acceptable, and why. She explained that the Instinct™ has to have the data plan. It can't be phone only. So the only way they could give me what I asked for was to sign me up for three separate plans: a phone for Ga, and a phone for me, and a phone for the in-laws. None of this share talk stuff for an extra $10 a month - three separate plans!

So I made her understand that this was not good at all, and that what I was told I could have was the one plan with two extra lines, plus data for one phone, mine. Oh, no, we can't do that. It has to be phone & text for all, or data for all.

"But that's not what the rep said."
"I can't help what he said. It has to be done this way."

Well, I didn't want to pay for data for my in-laws - shoot, I can barely get them to use the cell phone, and they only want to know how to answer it and make calls - but I really liked the Instinct™ and everything. So I guess I could...

So now GA finds out something that makes things really complicated. She can't have the data plan for her Blackberry, because it will conflict with the data service provided by her employer. So now we have a problem: she can't have data, and I have to have it, on the same plan. Now remember, it's only a policy that prevents them from adding data to one phone - it is NOT a technical issue.

I spent 90 minutes arguing with this bimbo about my problem, trying to make it clear that what she was telling me made it impossible to do business with them. So finally, with the phone getting very hot on my ear, GA and I decided that going with Sprint was a horrible mistake. I asked to be transferred to somebody who could cancel our account.

And this person says, sweetly, "Why didn't they just offer you the data on your Instinct™ only?" I explained that this was exactly what I had been asking for for the last 90 minutes, and could we please cancel our account and get instructions for returning the phones. She complied. A week later, we received the return kit, which is a plastic mailer bag and a UPS label, and a sheet of instructions. Now comes our little hurricane, and the resulting day off. We pack up the Instinct™ and the little phone with big buttons we got for the elderly parents. There on the instruction sheet, it says "DO NOT PACK MORE THAN ONE PHONE IN A BAG." But - but - we have two phones and only one bag. I call customer support.

"Oh, you can't mail them to us," she explains, "you have to return them to the store where you bought them. And you have to have the original credit card receipt."
"But I don't know where that store is. We did this through one of your reps, and he brought them to us."
"You have to return them to the store where you bought them."
"But the other person said to mail them in. She sent us this bag."
"I can't help what the other person said. It has to be done this way."
I handed GA the phone so she could get information about where the store was, and it was in downtown Houston, and the hurricane is upon us. Worse, I can't find the receipt.
I called the rep, the original one, and he says that we can take it to any store. It doesn't have to be the same one it came from. And you don't have to have the original credit card receipt. Just the other paperwork.
Another 90 minutes of cell phone air time has gone by.
Off we go, in the rain.
I'm expecting to have more idiocy to deal with, but the guy in the corporate store where we brought the phones says, quietly, "you just need to return two phones for credit? That's all? No problem."
We didn't even have to wait in a line. He was even able to straighten out the billing mess, which hadn't been done, contrary to what we were promised by the billing department. We were only charged for what we were promised would be the cost of the plan we asked for.
The moral of the story is this: if you are a Sprint customer, and if anything goes wrong, go to a corporate store to resolve the problem. The people at tech support are total morons.
Oh, and this: the Instinct™ is a cool phone. Really.