Honesty In Politics

I've spent a lot of time lately trying to figure out what the different candidates believe and what they will do should they get elected. Usually you have to dig very deep when you want to find a candidate's position on certain issues. Furthermore, you often get the same old, tired answers to questions or the candidates don't even bother to answer them out of fear.

Democrat Nicholas G. Schmutte is running against Republican incumbent Greg Steuerwald in Indiana's 40th State Representative District (where I live). I managed to find a brief comparison of the two candidates on the Indianapolis Star web site. While this comparison didn't cover many of the issues that I'm interested in, I particularly enjoyed Mr. Schmutte's honesty with regards to three questions:

Endorsements: "My wife"

How much funding have you raised for your campaign?: "Not much."

Who are your top three contributors?: "Me, myself and I"

How refreshingly sincere.

The Cartwheel is Coming

Just a few days ago in my "Obama Lowered the Price of Gas Already!" post it was noted that my wife would follow suit with Toni of In the Midst of This Season by doing a cartwheel should the price of a gallon of gas get to a certain point.

Toni (pictured here) made the original bet (although she probably thought of it as more like a flippant comment) with her husband, Carl. She agreed that if the price of gas fell below $2.50 a gallon she'd do "cartwheels in the road."

A week ago today her supportive husband pointed out the "$2.49/gallon" sign at the front of a BP station and Toni made good on the bet. Accountability in a marriage is important and Carl is setting the right example. We should all rally behind him.

So, when I mentioned this fun fact to my wife, Andrea (also known as "Miss Sniz" in the blogging world) she said that she'd do a cartwheel if the price fell below $2.00 a gallon. Imagine my surprise (and hers) when I saw this headline in the paper today:

Bargain In Brownsburg: $1.99 gas

I'm quite certain that a video of this event is in order and I'll follow up with it in a few days. While you're all waiting, go fill up your tanks if you live near the west side of Indy.

Ladies...Because You KNOW You Want To...

...Pee standing up.

That's right. You've been envious of men for all these years because we can easily take care of #1 in the woods, behind a building, between two cars or in the middle of a street. But now you can pee standing up, too, thanks to the "pStyle" (WARNING: Picture of woman peeing while standing up.)

The pStyle comes in an assortment of pretty colors (because that's important when you're urinating). Be sure to read the testimonials. You'll see where there are some practical applications of a device like this (like camping and dealing with horrible public restrooms), but it seems like a lot of them have to do with heavy drinking or women who want to be men. Go figure.

Special thanks to "Sullivan's Mom" for sending this link to me.

Phun With Photoshop

I'm kind of a Photoshop hack. I use it a lot at work and know my way around well enough. If I need to do something that's really tricky, I'll call a real graphic designer to help me out. Anyway, here's a before and after shot of me after I ate wayyyyy too much food at The Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Indy...

(before)

(after)

Obama Lowered the Price of Gas Already!

I just saw an ad last night from Senator Obama and he's promising to take on the banks and the big oil companies. I'll be really excited to see what he does with the banks because he already fixed the problem with the big oil companies gouging the little man--and he's not even in office yet!!! Yesterday I noticed gas for $2.39 a gallon in the Indy Metro area. Way to go, Barrack!

On a side note, if these gas prices keep falling to the point that a gallon goes for less than $2.00 my wife has promised to do a cartwheel just like Toni had to do recently.

Who Wants Free Money

My company did a sales promotion this year as an incentive to get some of our best dealers to sell more of our product. Basically, they received 5% of every dollar they spent with us towards an American Express card. It was a pretty sweet deal.

You'd think that it would be easy to call people to tell them about their FREE MONEY but that was not the case. We've all been programmed to be so skeptical of everything (and I'm guilty of this, too) that we have no patience for anyone on the phone. Out of the twenty people that I called today, at least half of them had secretaries who told me that the person I wanted to talk to was, "in a meeting," "not available," "busy," "playing solitaire," etc.

Once I finally got them on the phone and they made the connection that they have been out on the streets selling our product and were going to get rewarded for it, they were pretty happy. There's nothing like giving a bunch of money away.

Getting Cheered Up By My Teenager

My almost-fifteen-year-old walked into the house the other day and stared down at me while I was working on my laptop. His gaze was fixed just above my eyes and you could see the moment of inspiration turning into an actual thought and then words (I'm pretty sure there was some smoke coming out of his ears):

"Hey dad, you almost have a uni-brow."

Thanks, son.

On a somewhat related note, I've always thought that it was sad that Bert had to go through life with that monster uni-brow while poor Ernie had no eyebrows whatsoever.

Joe The Plumber - Finally, a Reason

I've been less than enthusiastic about the upcoming Presidential election, but late in the process the McCain campaign has given me a little more hope. It's in the form of the infamous "Joe the Plumber."



Do you know this story? Joe the plumber is a real guy. He's a plumber and is in the process of owning his own plumbing business. It just so happened that Barrack Obama was in his neighborhood and took the time to talk to the people. Joe asked Senator Obama about his tax plan that would tax him more if he were to make more money, thus making it harder for him to grow his business. Senator Obama's response was that it was ok to "share the wealth" a little:

Here's a great Opinion piece from Michael Barone in US News & World Reports:

CLICK HERE!

This is the major difference between Obama and McCain and continues to be one of the differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

At some point after the Obama - Joe the Plumber meeting, Joe was interviewed on ABC's Good Morning America:



If you needed a rallying call to get behind a candidate, here it is. If you support the socialist idea of sharing the wealth, then Obama is your man. If you don't then pull the lever (or push the button) for McCain. It's an important choice to make.