Hummers Escalades and Lexus Limousines

I find that MySpace is good for the occasional meme or short spurt of angst. For long rambling rants such as this one, it's blogger where my thoughts find a home.

On the way home today, I'm in the turn lane headed left. However, there's a mammoth, silver SUV in the oncoming lane and although the light is green, I can't see around this bastard to look for approaching vehicles. The driver in the car behind me looks impatient. I don't want to be honked at. It's not so much that I care that this person at my rear will be a couple minutes behind their likely meaningless schedule. It's that I'm so full of loathing for the human race these days, that I think I might jump out of my truck carrying a tire iron. And, well, you can imagine where things would go from there.

So, I take a chance and speed off down the next street. Luckily, there was no one to collide with. But, the encounter spawned a rampant dialogue in my head. Let me see if I can make my train of thought logical enough to convey. Supposedly, there's a fuel shortage in this country. I don't buy it and here's why. If the world is such a place that Americans are in danger of running out of gasoline, why are car makers building the largest abominations they can manage? Well, that's because the fuel crisis is a load of bullshit dreampt up by the coordinators of the Middle Eastern war. Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself.

There is such a thing as the law of supply and demand. The way I understand it, the price of an item fluxtuates depending on how many consumers are willing to purchase it at a certain cost. If nobody is buying product, then cost will go down so as to encourage purchase. If the demand for something goes up enough, and the supply is low, cost will rise. Or, price will be higher if fewer product is bought in order to make enough money to survive from the sale of fewer items. Make sense? Thus, companies that do market research will generally produce only items that they sense a demand for.

Car makers do loads of market research. If people in America could truly not afford the prices of gas, we wouldn't be seeing ads for Hummer and Dodge Mastadon every seven seconds on television. The parking lot at my local grocery store wouldn't be crammed with Soccer Mom Vans. Car makers would be pushing the latest in hybrid mini cars. Unless of course, everyone in America is a complete freaking idiot. There are masses of idiots, but the smart people out there make up enough of the population to make a difference. What's that you say? "Why Neko, there are ads for hybrid vehicles" Right you are, my friend. That's because these companies see the paranoid section of us that do like to save money on gas and do pay attention to the destruction of the environment and do live in California. That's beside the point. How many hybrids do you see on the road versus trucks and SUVs?

So, we've established that there is a demand for gas-guzzling hunks of impossibly massive four-wheeled steel, just by observing what products are on the market.

If the car companies see that we are all willing to shell out mass quantities of cash in order to keep our monsterous trucks running, where's all this gas coming from. Here's a theory. Public support of the war starts to wane. So, a "gas shortage" is conjured. "Oh no," Americans say, "kill those Arab bastards and get us some gas." Support of the war goes up. And why are we at war in the first place, if our neighbors to the North have so much fuel? And why are there people saying that the U.S. can survive on it's own reserves? It's because G.W. wants to fight daddy's war for him. That's why!!

Okay, enough political raving for me right now. Just think about this. I'd be happy to hear a couple different views or supporting factoids. I'm I right, or stark-raving loony? or both?

Off to the showers to wash away the stink of human contact.

Eating Out In Hell

Lo and behold, I've finally written a restaurant review! Follow the link at right to Neko's Veggie Reviews to read my review of Watercourse Foods. It's about damn time!

Slipping Into Something A Bit More Hell

I am a night owl, no doubt. While my obnoxious brother and reluctant father slumber, I'm working on the better part of a bottle of wine. Daddy gave me money for movies. I came home with 3 DVDs and a bottle of Zinfandel. Ah, sweet drunken abyss...

Between watching movies and wallowing in my own brokenness, I've found time to paint more. Here is the progress...



Ick..instead of "SunDance", they should call them "SlamDance" - to your death! Well, at least these smokes were free. It's amazing what smokers will do for other smokers.



Ick...instead of "Blogger", they should call it "Bugger" - it takes so long to upload these images. It's probably my connection though, and not Blogger's fault.





Hey, how did these get in here?! I don't keep my kitty in a cooler..I swear...



This picture represents the painting as it stands now. I felt the need to fill in all of my sketches, despite my previous inclination. All that's left is a background. The stark whiteness is too much glaring purity for me to digest. I'm not yet disappointed with this work. It helps for me to step away from time to time, as I find myself staring at this new addition to my basement hideout. It still looks like so much coagluated blood, but me likes anyway.

More Movie Watching In Hell

There are two new reviews up at Neko Goes To The Movies. If you haven't been there yet, it's cookin' these days! The two new features reviewed are Silent Hill and Evolution.

Why the Hell Wouldn't This Load?

I think I've picked up the spare.



That's as far as I got last night. It's kind of fun to stare at right now, so I can't decide to finish it or not.

The Circles of Hell

I must be depressed. Either that, or it's the lack of beer, lack of cigarettes, lack of sex, lack of money and lack of suitable living quarters that's driven me mad. Regardless, I started to paint again. And for the sake of misery loves company, I'm going to post pictures of my progress here. (It's not too late to visit The Book of Shenry).



This time, instead of sketching my design on paper beforehand, I just drew right on the canvas.



Now, I've added the first layer of color, which is the creamy hue of unsalted butter. It dawned on me that the lightest colors should be painted first. It's much easier to cover a lighter color with a darker color than it is to do the opposite.



Here's the next color. Keep in mind that when I paint, I only use the 3 primary colors and black and white to mix my colors from.



And so on...



Starting to see a theme? I've been trying to balance each color evenly throughout the canvas. The problem is, I think I might run out of colors in this spectrum before I finish filling in the design.

There's another picture, but I can't get flippin Blogger to load it up. Ah well, I'll try in another post.

Zwinkies From Hell

I'm really hooked on this Zwinky thing.

Hell At Maximum Capacity

I've known for a while that things were in the works to get my little brother moved in with my father and I. I just thought I would have more time. I thought that another month would transpire before the proper court documents were made official. But, apparently, the school that he can actually get into at this point begins classes this week. Wednesday? Consequently, he's begun moving furniture and rearranging things. Unfortunately, most of my belongings (or at least the ones I use more frequently) are in that room.

This Saturday, I awoke to the sounds of voices and crashing about. Every time I'm rudely stirred from sleep in such a fashion, I silently renew my vow to find an apartment. So, I stumbled upstairs, eager for a shower and groggy and cranky. Guess what? My bathtub was occupied by a hose connected to a draining waterbed. Plus, we had a guest. My brother had decided that it was finally time to disassemble the leaky POS bed and he had invited his girlfriend over to help with the furnishings. So, no shower for me. Thankfully, his girlfriend is really cool and the two of us get along quite well. It's a nice change from the skanks he usually finds to drag around.

Lo and behold, I discover that the boy is on the fast track to moving in! It would have been nice to have a little more notice. I detest having people go through my belongings and would have liked to have the chance to remove them from the construction site. I was also hoping that I'd be able to save enough money to find my own place before the house was overrun. Sonofabitch! Right away, I can see one of the more serious issues is going to be the use of bathroom facilities. Every single f**ing time the little brat uses my bathroom, he pisses all over the damn toilet seat!!! I confronted him with this gripe and he pretended innocence. I know it's him because my father always uses his own, private bathroom. I'm not giving up the bathroom I have now because it's got the very best shower and accomodations. The one downstairs is adjacent to the litter box, and the only other option is through my father's bedroom. This is going to require my foot coming down.

So, that's the primary stress in my life right now. I just wasn't ready for all of this so soon. I hope and pray that the next 6 weeks will go by smoothly and enable my departure from this situation ASAP.

Another Movie Review? What the Hell?

Two more reviews have gone up at Neko Goes To the Movies. The subjects under scrutiny are: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Final Destination 3. I'm also working on a little maintence on that site.

A Scan of Hell

There are two new movie updates at Neko Goes To The Movies.

A Scanner Darkly and
Master and Commander.

Hell and Hitmen

There's a new post up at Neko Goes To The Movies. It's for The Matador, so go take a look-see.

Might As WHell Try

I find that the dumbest mistake any criminal can make is to film themself committing a crime. I'll admit, when one is engaged in clandestine activities, especially when going on solo missions, it's tempting to want to preserve the occasion in some fashion. But, it's just plain idiotic. Not that I'm planning anything illegal....well, at least not anything that will bring harm to anyone....

It would be almost equally as assenine to go online and detail the various steps of such a hypothetical plan. James Bond would never get anywhere if his targets weren't fool enough to indulge themselves with a step by step outline of their master plans. Ever so foolish my dear Mr. Goldfinger. The only fanatics bold enough to leave paper trails are serial killers. I've been led to believe that these men are so intelligent, they'd never be caught if they didn't want to be. But...I don't plan to hurt anyone...not even a plant.

Actually, I had planned to hurt myself quite severely not so many days ago, but those urges have passed. It's a good thing I have friends. Well, I'd better finish off this bottle of wine and get to work...I mean BED...BED, I'm going to bed...