Friday I'm in love...
Its Friday... I'm pretty bored.
Tomorrow morning Amber and I are going to a house in Lansing to paint. Auto-Owners does a "Day of Caring" each year in which people from the company get together to paint a house in the community. Seeing as I always promote community involvement, I thought this would be a good time to get started in the Lansing area. I don't think the community we will be working in is too far from where I live, probably a 5 or 10 minute drive, so it will be nice to get out there nice and early to do some serious work. We are painting from 8am til noon and then they are feeding us lunch (which I may or may not stick around for).
Tomorrow afternoon I'm headed up to CMU to party with the gang. It sounds like a whole shitload of people are going up. Me, Amber, Justin, Lindsey, Mike (from across the street from Amber), Rob will be there, um, Aaron and Chinese Happy, Rory, and I think that is probably it. To me it sounds like a lot of fun. First we get to see Chinese Happy play at the Wesley Foundation, then I'm buying the crew a keg to party and drink at Andreas. I think I'm going to go up there right after painting, probably swing in and pick up my clothes and stuff, shower and whatnot, and then head right up. Shouldn't be too much of a chore to get up there, but I'm anxious to go right now.
So, seeing how the "real world" is typically boring, I gotten back into my overthinking stages. At least this year I am not overthinking about Andrea too much, I do that enough as is. I tend to overthink about politics, sociological issues, and a whole lot about the capitalist system in the US. I also tend to focus a lot of my driving time focused on people and their driving habits. I may be obsessive in many aspects, but I can't stand driving anymore. It drives me crazy to watch people fly past me on the highway. When I am driving the speed limit (which is what I have been doing since gas prices hit $2.00 / gallon) and people blow past me doing at least 80, I think a lot. I think about their lifestyles, I think about their wallets, I think about their priviledges, or their shortcomings. I'm not sure what it is about driving habits that has me so peaved, but there is something about driving fast when gas prices are so exorbited that really twists me the wrong way. I tend to think that people that are driving fast don't really care about the price of gas. They can handle the cost of driving over the speed limit, like they have the money and don't ahve to worry about it. Maybe this is the case, so, has driving fast turned into as much of a status symbol as other things in society? Is it a coincidence that a large percentage of the cars that pass me are newer vehicles? Are the drivers of these vehicles simply unconscious to the idea that maybe their driving habits actually do have an impact on how much they spend at the pump? I guess the most upsetting aspect to driving habits for me is this - in the US we are obsessed with out big vehicles. Our small vehicles, even the Mini-Cooper, are actually larger then their European and Asian counterparts. Go figure, the nation that hogs the largest portion of the world's resources also has the largest vehicles. I guess it makes sense. Anyways, what I hate the most is when people bitch and whine about the prices of gas. The rest of the world, besides Ecuador I think, pay a great deal more per gallon then we do. Yet, on a supply and demand charge, any economist would tell you that the price of supply / demand in comparison to the price of gas in the US makes absolutely no sense when compared to the rest of the world. People need to stop bitching about the price of gas and if they want to do anything about it, a simple letter to their senator or congressman explaining their feelings regarding the energy crisis in the world would suffice as an argument worthy of my respect. Otherwise, shut up.
Next rant (**insert random thought** maybe I would have been better off going into psychology or sociology because I like contemplating why groups of people are fucking dumb as rocks **end random thought**) - I have the hardest time keeping my mouth shut when people say "oh, I found the best deal at Walmart...." yadda yadda. People do not realize what the Walmart business practices are doing to the US economy. Walmart is very smart as an international business, indeed, they force the manufacturers to produce the goods for the cheapest price. So you know, Walmart will actually find out what a company can produce good for and then make them sell it to Walmart or Walmart will drop their product. For example: Rubbermaid was picked up by Walmart years back. Well, Walmart decided to carry a LOT of Rubbermaid, actually forcing Rubbermaid to increase productivity, eventually carrying a very large percentage of all or Rubbermaid's entire production quantity. Well, upon doing this they had Rubbermaid in a real bind - they knew what price Rubbermaid could produce their products for, and went into negotiations to force Rubbermaid to sell their products to Walmart for that price. Well, Rubbermaid had no choice but to abide by these prices or go out of business because they were forced to outsource their entire production to China in order to compete with Walmart's set prices. Walmart had aquired such a high quantity of Rubbermaid's product that Rubbermaid was forced to do what Walmart wanted or go out of business. Do you see wha this does to companies in the US? This is besides the fact that they are shutting down smaller businesses in your and my communities and hire non-union, often questionable employees. Walmart can kiss my ass. The next time you hear someone say that they "saved 20 cents on a loaf of bread at Walmart" go ahead and tell them to shove that loaf of bread up their ass for me. WALMART SUCKS!
OK, I'm tired of writing this and I doubt anyone will read it anyways.
