That black thing under your right foot makes the car move…

While I’m used to being annoyed during my rush hour commute, I noticed a new, terrible trend taking hold while driving home from work the other night.

Now, I’m used to the typical hazards that plague the interstate around here. You’ve got people gabbing on cell phones and completely oblivious to the fact that they’re behind the wheel of a vehicle that’s going 70 miles-per-hour in heavy traffic. You’ve got the punk kids zipping in and out of traffic who seem oblivious to their own mortality.

Closely related to the punk kids with fast cars are the motorcycle riders who also love to dart in and out of traffic. Oddly, the Harley-Davidson riders seem to be among the most level-headed bikers on the road – the reckless 20-somethings who go for those “crotch rocket” motorcycles are the ones you just know are accidents waiting to happen.

Ah, but a new kind of maniac has hit the roads. I flew by a Toyota Prius the other day that was going about 50 miles-per-hour while traffic was streaming into Saline County at around 70 MPH. The driver wasn’t old and straining to look over the steering wheel. The driver didn't appear to be in pain and heading to the hospital. No, he was just clogging up traffic and didn’t seem to mind that two lanes of cars full of angry drivers were zooming past him.

I know for a fact a Prius will hit 70 MPH as I once test drove a hybrid and noticed that it moved along pretty well. I figured the driver was just a random nut until I ran across another Prius doing the exact same thing. A bit later, I came across another one. I’ve noticed some other drivers employing the same obnoxious technique since then.

A friend of mine tells me that some of these folks are purposely driving like it’s Sunday morning because they’re trying to maximize their fuel economy. I won’t call those folks “hypermilers” as I understand the people who engage in that practice are rarely a safety hazard.

Hey, if I can drive my Toyota Matrix like a bat out of hell and average 35 MPG on a long, highway trip, then someone in a Prius ought to at least be able to at least acknowledge that there is a speed limit and try to get somewhere close to it. What kid of smug bastard would tool around at 50 MPH, get in the way of other drivers and feel perfectly justified in doing so?

The fact of the matter is I do like the Prius and hybrid technology. Higher gas mileage means that fewer dollars are going to those rascals at the oil companies and people in the Middle East who don’t like us all that much.

But come on – show some consideration and get close to the speed limit, huh? If this kind of nonsense continues, I’ve got the solution – simply designate one of those three lanes on the interstate as the “slow ass” lane and arrest any crawler that refuses to stay in it. They can drive along without annoying the rest of us and everyone will be happy, right? It would be like building a wading pool to keep the kids and the adults segregated.

That’s a hell of an idea, actually.

No more vegetables (or why I stay in trouble at home)

Want to get in trouble with your wife? Just get a blog and post something like the story I’m about to relate.

That ought to do it.

My wife goes to bed before I do, see, and I was getting ready to go to sleep the other night. Before I crawled into bed she started talking in her sleep.

“No more vegetables,” she said.

“What?”

“No more vegetables.”

Then she stole my pillow.

What the hell?

Blasted fleas…

Back when we lived in northwest Arkansas, the place was just crazy with fleas.

Every year we had to go to war against the things. They itch, they’re a health risk and I despise the little critters. Unfortunately, coming up with a good flea control plan is essential if you have pets (we do).

We don’t have as much trouble with fleas these days as we did in the past and that’s largely because we developed a plan to combat them over the years. Want to develop a plan in a hurry and skip past all the “hit and miss” stuff my wife and I had to try? Head on over to the Flea Control Guide, then, and pick up some great advice in a hurry.

To pick up an extra dose of inspiration, visit the pics of fleas section so you can get a look at the nasty beasts you’re fighting. Yuck!

This is the kind of thing that just drives me nuts

The newspapers in Arkansas have been buzzing as of late – U.S. Sen Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) was quoted as saying unruly demonstrations at town hall meetings are un-American.

Lincoln later retracted her remark and I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. I’ve voted for her and she has – for the most part – done right by my state and is generally receptive to ideas that fall outside the accepted canon of the Democrats (it’s a pity we can’t say the same about our other senator and that mumbling, mustached congressman from the 2nd District).

What I do take exception to, however, is the notion that people raising hell about what Barack Obama and his ilk are trying to do are somehow un-American. Apparently, that “patriotic dissent” that the left loved to howl about during the Bush years is only acceptable in certain instances (i.e., when a Democrat isn’t in power).

In this latest round of pooh-poohing, we’ve heard a lot about the “manufactured dissent” that the right has engaged in to cause trouble at town hall meetings. We’ve heard about how the extreme right is keeping the uneducated masses in a state of fear when it comes to healthcare reform through exaggerations, half-truths and outright lies.

In short, the right is being blasted to bits for using the same tactics that MoveOn.org celebrates and brags about proudly. The very idea that one group of organized rabble-rousers is patriotic while another one is un-American would be laughable if we didn’t have so many people willing to advance that notion.

I can’t say I agreed with a lot of the shenanigans from the left that we had to put up with during the Bush years, but they certainly had every right in the world to make their views known. It is an extreme example of hypocrisy for some of those same people – folks who were so vocal about how their protests were born of a love for their country – are the very ones declaring that howling conservatives are un-American.

It is more distressing to hear that very sentiment advanced by a U.S. senator. Sure she took her comment back, but one can’t help but wonder how many in her party think the same way.

Why there’s still room for a professional, independent press

As I’ve mentioned before, I make my living as a public relations guy.

I started out in the newspaper business, practiced law for a few years, went back into journalism and eventually would up with a PR gig. I visit with our friends in the press on a regular basis and have heard more than a bit of concern from some of those folks over the direction in which the media seems to be heading.

Specifically, the newspapers, television and radio news outlets have been laying off an alarming number of people here in Arkansas and it seems newspapers are actually shrinking in size as their owners try to figure out ways to combat shrinking revenue. That’s a true shame because the simple fact is that we need a healthy, independent and professional group of journalists out digging up stories and reporting.

Otherwise we’re looking at the grim prospect of the news being generated by the government, corporations, trade associations and other groups with a vested interest in what information the public has and what it doesn’t. With fewer reporters out there these days, there are a lot of people getting their news directly from those aforementioned outlets and that’s simply no damned good at all.

If you want to know how bad things are getting out there, I know of one organization (which shall remained unnamed) that has concluded that balanced, fair reporting is balanced or fair at all. The theory here is that there can only be one correct side of certain stories – the aforementioned organization is always right and any opinion to the contrary is simply wrong. What value is there, after all, in letting an incorrect opinion get loose in the public? If the highly-stylized “we’re right and everyone else is wrong so they should shut up” theory seems particularly arrogant, well that’s just because it is. Unless you’ve got a well-organized corps of journalists out to fight such well-organized conceit, who else with any credibility can do it?

Of course there’s always the argument that bloggers can somehow fill the role traditionally occupied by the mainstream media, but that’s only partially true. How many people are seriously going to make a career out of blogging and covering everything from what’s happening at the local city hall to what legislation is pending in Congress? There are some people out there attempting to do just that and some of them do a fine job, to be sure, but there are always questions of bias (for example, name one political blog out there that’s truly neutral). Besides, how many people can make a living out of blogging? If someone is going to pursue such a “citizen journalism” route and sell advertisements, will their revenue stream be strong and diversified enough to tell a major advertiser “no” when pressured to write a certain story or slant things in favor of a certain company?

Bias has always been a problem in the traditional media, of course, but the better journalists I’ve known have always tried to fight such favoritism. Further, the better newspapers I’ve worked for have kept their advertising and editorial departments separate. When I was a reporter and had advertisers call me and try to convince me of the merit of a certain story, I had the authority to refuse and know that the newspaper would back up my decision. That is a luxury that you just don’t have when you rely on just a few advertisers and they become very interested in what news is being distributed to the public.

The answer, I think, is to merge (for want of a better term) what professional journalists do with what bloggers do. Again, there are some publications taking that route but they are running into problems – how can an organization make money by distributing news over the Internet? Is there really enough advertising revenue out there to support a slew of intensely local and national media outlets on the Internet?

How journalism will look in a few years is anyone’s guess. However, I do believe one thing is clear – we need a professional corps of journalists who make a living by nothing but reporting the news and trying to be impartial about it.

Music Monday – Oingo Boingo!

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My life would be better with a laugh track

I’ve thought about it a lot and I’ve decided that life would be much better if I only had a portable laugh track.

Let’s face it. Being a husband, father and working stiff can get a bit mundane. What is needed here is a laugh track to emphasize those daily events that are actually a hoot.

I’m not just talking about a laugh track, really. I’m talking about something that could transform my everyday experience into one long situation comedy. My laugh track (for want of a better term) would include applause, the mass “oooo!” sound that audiences make when they see something particularly tantalizing, etc.

Here’s how it would work. Let’s say I come home from work:

The Hawg – Walks through front door. “Honey, I’m home.” (applause)

The Hawg kisses Marci Kay (cue that “oooo!” sound effect)

Brenda SueCarol (our young daughter) – Wrinkles nose. “Eww! Get a room!” (laughter)

Now, what could be more fun than that. I could use my laugh track at work, too, for those events that just beg for one. For example, my rat terrier – the famed Cobb – was tossed in the pound a couple of years ago and I had to bail him out.

Cobb ran into trouble about a year after that when the animal control folks stopped by my house because a neighbor had been complaining about Cobb’s barking. Now, you need to understand a couple of things. First of all, there’s an ordinance in town that prohibits dogs from barking from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. (or something like that). So my barking dog wasn’t breaking the law.

Also, this particular neighbor who sent animal control our way (and probably had Cobb tossed in the pound in the first first place) hates my dog. This individual’s way of dealing with unruly animals is to starve them to death and/or let them die of heat exhaustion by chaining them up out of the shade and giving them no water in the summer (I just wish I was kidding). So I don’t give a damn if that individual likes Cobb or not, frankly.

At any rate, I related the story of animal control showing up at my house to my friend Dave at work. He made a quip that is worthy of a laugh track:

Dave – Shakes head. “Man, they’re just picking on Cobb because he’s got a record.” (insert laugh track)

Now I just have to figure out where to get a laugh track and how to carry it around with me wherever I go. I will caution you – this is my idiotic idea and you’ll be a big doo-doo head if you steal it.

Wish me luck!

Midget wrestling and minor league baseball? Seriously?

A friend of mine was excited at work today because he received an email notification that there would be midget wrestling last night in North Little Rock at an Arkansas Travelers game.

No. You really can’t make up stuff like this. Here is the relevant part of that aforementioned email:

“The show you definitely don’t want to miss…MIDGET WRESTLING makes its final appearance of the 2009 baseball season presented by Midtown Billiards, The Edge, CW Arkansas and Fox 16. L’il Kato and Puppet ‘The Psycho Dwarf’ will battle for the World Heavyweight Midget Wrestling Championship at 6:45 p.m. in the squared circle at home plate!”

My friend called me from the game, declared the event “awesome” and shot some video on his iPhone that I can watch at the office on Monday. Sadly I couldn’t make it out to see some midget wrestling and I’m not sure whether L’il Kato or Puppet ‘The Psycho Dwarf’ won the event.

It doesn’t matter that much, really. I just feel I missed out on something unusual and more than a bit entertaining. I’ve been an Arkansan my entire life but some things that happen in this state still surprise me.

Midget wrestling before an Arkansas Travelers baseball game. Wow.

Foreclosed – a few words about my Wordless Wednesday entry

Yes, it seems like just yesterday (in fact it was just yesterday) when I submitted the photo on the left as my Wordless Wednesday entry.

I didn’t take that photo or come up with the nifty “speech bubble,” but I had to share the picture. Why? I make my living as a public relations guy (I prefer the term “media cat” but that hasn’t caught on) and have heard a lot about foreclosures over the past couple of years.

That photo was sent to me by a fellow in my office (the technology cat, to be precise) as he’s heard a lot about foreclosures, too.

There are a couple of things about the foreclosures topic that are worth mentioning. For one thing, we’ve had our share of those things in Arkansas, but our troubles have been few compared to a lot of other states. One of the primary reasons for our good fortune in that regard has to do with the conservative nature of our lending institutions.

The National Association of Realtors tells us that the majority of foreclosures involve subprime mortgages. A lot of banks in this state simply refused to deal with those mortgages, so we’ve not had as many defaults as some other areas. Arvest – the largest bank in Arkansas – is one of those that simply refused to deal with subprime mortgages.

Second, I’m sick to death of the bickering over whether Republicans or Democrats are to blame for the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. The simply truth is that this mess has been brewing for 30 years and both political parties had a hand in it.

Yes, back in 1977 the Jimmy Carter administration pushed through the Community Reinvestment Act to encourage more relaxed credit standards so as to make it easier for people to take out mortgages. The thought was that poor folks and minorities were being discriminated against by banks that wouldn’t give the money. Equity, seemingly, demanded a remedy.

Some of that risky lending, as you might recall, was a contributor to the savings and loan crisis that beat the hell out of the financial system from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s. Rather than learn from the mistakes made, Bill Clinton announced in 1999 that everyone has the right to own a home and his administration pushed through measures that further relaxed lending standards for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Jump forward to the first term of the George W. Bush administration and you may recall that the only thing going well in the economy was the housing market. In an attempt to keep that rolling, lending standards were relaxed a bit further. They might not have been actively pushed for Bush, but you’d better believe his administration didn’t have much motivation to say “boo” about the alarmingly lax standards.

The key to the whole mess, of course, is the mortgage backed securities market. A mortgage backed security is exactly what it sounds like – an instrument that behaves like a bond and is backed by mortgages.

For awhile, investors lined up in droves to buy those things. Local banks generally didn’t have much call to scrutinize loan applications to closely – all they knew was that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would guarantee those mortgages. Meanwhile, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could simply dump those loans on the mortgage backed security market and everything would be dandy.

Well, it didn’t turn out so dandy, did it? When you float a bunch of risky mortgages out there with terms that are too much for borrowers to bear, you wind up with a lot of foreclosures. Some of the mortgages being written just a few years ago were downright odd. We’re talking about thing like mortgages on which borrowers paid interest only for a period of a few years. When those few years ran, borrowers had to pay both interest and principal and simply couldn’t afford mortgage payments that went up by hundreds of dollars overnight. Adjustable rate mortgages often contained such unfavorable terms (i.e., locked in at a low rate for a few years then the mortgage would float) and we saw a lot of foreclosures from that end, too.

So a lot of the subprime mess was brought on by government interference and downright greed on the part of a lot of the financial industry. Borrowers, too, jumped in over their heads and were convinced the could sell their homes for a profit before the unfavorable terms of their subprime mortgages took hold. As we’ve seen, that was just not a safe bet – housing values plummeted due to overbuilding, downward pressure on prices, a souring economy and a host of other problems.

Oh, and here’s more great news – default rates on prime mortgages have increased dramatically this year according to the Federal Reserve. Great.

The good news here is that banks seemed to have learned a thing or two over the past couple of years. They’re looking hard at credit reports and are generally insisting on down payments from people wanting to take out mortgages. It’s worth mentioning that Arvest – and a lot of other banks that didn’t take any bailout money – had those policies in place for years.

Perhaps other lenders – and the federal government – can learn a thing or two about the value of conservative lending and taking as few risks with investors’ money as possible.

This post is part of the oh-so-dandy Tell Me Thursday event. Bump the link to find out more about Tell Me Thursday!

Lou Holtz for Congress? Heck yeah!

Here’s some news that ought to make any Arkansan proud – Lou Holtz might run for a seat in Congress.

You heard me right – he may run as a Republican and challenge central Florida incumbent U.S. Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, a Democrat.

For those of you unfamiliar with Holtz, he was the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks until he was run out of this state by a pack of morons in 1983. He went to a little college called Notre Dame in 1986 and led the Irish to a national championship in 1986.

I’m all for Holtz for at least a couple of reasons. For one thing, the man is a hoot. I have said – time and time again – that we ought to be electing better leaders to national offices. The American public doesn’t seem to interested in that as evidenced by the rotten candidates that have run for president since Ronald Reagan left office (yeah, the Democrats and Republicans have both scraped the bottom of the barrel for candidates since 1988).

Seriously, folks. The last presidential election featured a grumpy old man who didn’t seem to know what he really wanted to achieve and a fellow who stole his campaign slogan from Bob the Builder. We quit worrying about quality candidates and responsible government years ago.

Yes, you could expect Holtz to always be up to something wacky and popping off about this, that and the other. Holtz has a big mouth and it often gets him in trouble. If we can’t expect much from government, then we can at least be entertained, right?

My view of politics is – I realize – cynical as can be. I explain my point of view to people by relating a story from my days as a student. When I was a freshman at Hendrix College in scenic Conway, Ark., I was ironing a shirt in my dorm room (I have always hated ironing). I heard a knock at the door, yelled “come in!” and a fellow wearing a coat and tie entered.

“Hi!” he enthused as he handed me a pamphlet. “I’m blah-blah and I’m running for student council! I would really appreciate your vote.”

“You really want my vote?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Then get in here and iron my shirt.”

“I’m not going to iron your shirt!”

“Then I’m not going to vote for you.”

The poor slob looked like he wanted to say something but just couldn’t manage it. He wandered off in a huff, leaving me with my ironing and a great story that I’ve been telling for over 20 years now.

Here’s the point – if I would have gotten that guy to iron my shirt, I would have received more benefit from an elected official than most people receive in their lives.

If we can’t expect the government to do much, then there’s nothing wrong with voting for someone who could at least make political news interesting. Yes, I’d expect his speeches from the House floor to be littered with all sorts of sports analogies.

“It’s third and long, but we’re not giving up,” Holtz might say. “We’ve hit the two minute warning but I know we’re mounting a comeback that will be one for the books.”

Another reason I like Holtz is that he might actually get something done. The man is a loose cannon who says what he means and isn’t afraid to back down from a fight. Compared to that mealy-mouthed Vic Snyder who represents Arkansas’ Second District (my district, sadly) in the House, a hell-raising, straight shooter like Holtz would be a refreshing change of pace.

Snyder mumbles the party line through his mustache while Holtz tends to get angry and yell what’s on his mind. Of course, Holtz’s tendency to disregard the consequences of his words might be the thing that would cost him enough votes to keep him out of Congress. That would be a shame.

Now, I know a lot of people like to talk about experience when it comes to politics these days. The notion, of course, is that someone who hasn’t served in an elected office just isn’t as effective as someone who has.

That’s a bunch of crap. Look here – Holtz managed to lead the Razorbacks to a stunning victory over the Oklahoma Sooners in the 1978 Orange Bowl, has a national title under his belt and is in the College Football Hall of Fame. He’s achieved more than 95 percent of the careerists in the House or the Senate. That’s good enough for me.

I like this notion of Holtz running for office so much I might just make a contribution even though he’d be representing Florida rather than Arkansas. You want change? Just put Holtz in office and you’ll see some change.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday – foreclosed?

Why not visit Wordless Wednesday to check out the other participants or submit something of your own?

No. No. No!!!

As if I didn’t have enough to be mad about, I read the confirmation from KISSonline.com that one of my favorite bands had agreed to do an ad campaign with those filthy, filthy charlatans at M&M’s.

I haven’t been this mad since Nike was trying to sell me some shoes by pimping out the Beatles’ “Revolution” in an ad campaign that only a corporate stooge could love. Sadly, it’s not surprising. After Gene Simmons’ decades of hawking everything from Kiss Kaskets to his own wife’s tell-all memoirs, he apparently had enough of his soul left to sell to M&M’s – this generation’s great evil.

Yes, my outright hatred of M&M’s is well documented. I’ve got another reason to hate them now – that cheap, rotten Mars bunch is now going to get a little fatter off the legacy of a band that used to be great.

Yeah, laugh it you want. But Kiss did, indeed, used to be a great band. They suck these days and it’s somehow fitting that they’re banking on their makeup days in public appearances and in that filthy M&M’s ad, but two of the members that made the band great – Ace Frehley and Peter Criss – are nowhere to be found.

No, Criss has been replaced by Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer is filling in for Thayer these days. Singer and Thayer can wear the makeup, but it’s not the same thing no matter how much Simmons and Paul Stanley want us to believe that it’s just like the good old days.

Frehley and Criss are lucky in a way – at least they aren’t around to see themselves portrayed by stinking, talking M&M’s.

Speaking of Frehley, he’s got a new album coming out on Sept. 15 (click here to stream the track "Outer Space," by the way -- rocks!) Here’s hoping his new record blows the one being slopped together by Kiss out of the water. They’re probably too busy playing with M&M’s to record anything worth a damn, anyway.

Still, the very idea of pairing one of my favorite bands from my childhood with cheap, nasty M&M’s is nauseating. At least Nike makes decent shoes and that removed some of the stink of that “Revolution” faux pas. The M&M’s bunch can’t even fall back on a decent product.

It’s worth mentioning that there is supposed to be a “special KISS edition” of that barely edible M&M’s candy before long. Were it up to me, I’d call the Kiss version of that junk “Extra Krappy.” Heh, heh.

Phooey on Kiss and M&M’s both. Just plain phooey.

Pronounced ‘You-Sneb-Bitch’

I love this band. Why? Because these lads go out of their way to be really, really horrible. Check out the glory of King Uszniewicz & the Uszniewicztones for yourself by watching the below video (and read more about this disaster of a band over at Norton Records).

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

New and different? Really?

My wife and I were watching Burn Notice the other night (truly a great show) when something not so great happened.

Yes, it seems there was a very obvious product placement ad for one of those 64 calorie light beers that was awkwardly inserted in the episode we were watching. Well, it was 64 calories or something close to it and I think it was Michelob, but I was too irritated to care.

Now, I don’t mind people out making a buck and I’m not to irritated by very obvious product placement ads in the middle of television shows. What does annoy me, however, is when someone takes an idea that has been around for years and tries to market it as something brand new.

That level of conceit relies on the notion that we just aren’t paying attention. Bugs the hell out of me.

Here’s the thing. A lot of these breweries have been howling about their 60-some-odd calorie beer lately. Folks, this is absolutely nothing new. Every hear of Pearl Light? It weighs in at 68 calories and has been around for decades.

The thing about Pearl Light, however, is that it’s kind of hard to come by these days and absolutely no advertising revenue is spent on it. Pearl was established way on back in 1883 and is still brewed in Fort Worth, Texas. Read all about Pearl here.

Pearl Light is cheap swill that costs about $7 for a 12-pack around here and it’s hard to find it (I’m told) outside of Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Still, it’s low calorie cheap swill and seems to have beaten those other brewers of cheap, diet beer to the punch by several decades.

Still, these other brewers have the marketing bucks so I guess they can howl about their “new” beer all they want. Some of us, however, know better.

By the way, I can’t stress enough how great of a show USA’s Burn Notice really is. It’s got Bruce Campbell in it and anything with that guy in it is automatically great.

Apparently we can’t drive in the rain, either

I don’t know if people have gotten worse at driving in the rain here in Arkansas over the past couple of decades or I’ve just become impatient over the years.

It’s a well established fact that we Arkansans are absolutely clueless when it comes to driving in the snow. Folks who move down here from up north tend to marvel at our complete inability to drive on snow but that’s not totally our fault. We can’t help the way we slide around on frozen roads for a couple of reasons – we haven’t had the practice and we don’t have the equipment.

Here’s what I mean. Let’s say a foot of snow falls on a town in Iowa. What do they do? City workers get up early, plow the streets and then drive around like nothing happened.

Here in Benton, Ark., a snow flake hitting the street and sticking might be enough to shut down the town. Yes, schools let out and a lot of us just stay home until the snow melts.

It doesn’t snow here that often so we haven’t had much practice driving on it. Also, we don’t have a lot of the equipment necessary to clear the streets when we get snow or ice. That actually makes sense – that equipment is expensive, so why buy it if you’ll use it (at most) about a week a year?

At any rate, I noticed today that a lot of us stink when it comes to driving in the rain, too. I headed off to work this morning in what I’d describe as moderate rainfall (i.e., it was raining too hard to get by with using the “mist” setting on my windshield wipers) and my 25-minute commute took about 45 minutes.

Why? Well, a wreck on I-30 slowed things down quite a bit. I noticed  the wreck, really, when I ran over a piece of Oldsmobile on the interstate.

That’s right. A piece of Oldsmobile. I ran right over it. It was a rubbery chunk of that stuff that covers bumpers or something like that.

I assume it was a piece of Oldsmobile I hit, however, because it was sitting near an Oldsmobile that was in terrible, terrible shape. The front in was bashed in and the hood had that accordion look to it that’s typically reserved for Saturday morning cartoons.

A wreck that’s severe enough to cause pieces of one of the cars involved to back up traffic is something that delays things quite a bit. From the looks of things, the Olds clearly skidded into an SUV (that vehicle didn’t have pieces falling off of it) and one can only guess that the rain caused that wreck.

In fact, the rain caused wrecks all over central Arkansas today – according to the traffic reports on the radio, at least. I came across the battered Oldsmobile and saw another truck that had went into the median on I-430, too.

The truck one was interesting in that the vehicle was clearly bogged down in the median and it was being connected via a tow strap to another truck that looked like it was on its way to getting stuck in the mud. So, yeah, there was another delay – people had to drive by it slowly and look at it.

So we can’t drive on snow or ice. We can’t drive in the rain. People are getting in wrecks during rush hour constantly because they’re chatting on cell phones rather than paying attention to what’s going on around them. I’m amazed I haven’t yet been in a wreck during my commute.

Some other neighborly reminders from your old friend, The Hawg

For my Wordless Wednesday post yesterday, I put up a picture of the nifty sign over to the left.

That’s one of the more disturbing signs I’ve seen in some time. My wife and I were out shopping in Little Rock on Saturday and stopped by a Cracker Barrel to grab some lunch.

Oddly, I didn’t feel too secure when we stepped out of our minivan and were advised to lock our vehicle and remove our valuables from it. Oh, what could be more neighborly than that? I know Little Rock has a crime problem but are thieves really lurking around a Cracker Barrel in one of the safer parts of town?

Now I – your old friend The Hawg – am the helpful sort. I was inspired to come up with a few more signs to be posted around Little Rock (the last one should be posted in every city in the country, but that goes without saying). Y’all enjoy and be sure to read the plug for Tell Me Thursday after you look at the dandy signs.

This is my submission to the fantastic Tell Me Thursday event. If you participate in the weekly Wordless Wednesday thing, you really should give Tell Me Thursday a look.

A neighborly reminder?

This post is part of the famed Wordless Wednesday event. Head on over to see other entries or submit something of your own.

First United Church of Dude?

Folks, I knew it would happen – I turned 40-years-old in June and became, like, old almost overnight.

I became aware of that last Wednesday afternoon. My 12-year-old son was wearing a pair of gym shorts and a tee shirt.

“G’bye,” the boy said.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Church. With my friend blah-blah.”

“Dressed like that?”

“Yeah, that’s how everyone dresses there.”

“Where? The First United Church of Dude?”

Apparently, things are very casual at that church on Wednesday nights and I suppose that’s fine. However, I was raised to observe at least a bit of formality when it comes to church. The big hubbub when I was a kid was whether people ought to show up in Wednesdays in jeans.

Apparently, that issue was resolved years ago and people are now wandering off to church dressed like they’re ready to mow the lawn. Perhaps that’s OK, but I could just imagine the sermon.

“Dudes and dudettes,” the pastor might say. “That Jesus cat was gnarly, man. I mean, like, way gnarly. Whoa!”

That image has plagued me for a week now.

Music Monday – Revolution

One of my favorite Beatles songs…

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It’s just a shame about the Dreamcast…

One of the game consoles I still enjoy as much today as the day I got it is the Sega Dreamcast.

Why? That system was years ahead of its time in 1999 and the games still look great on my HDTV thanks to the innovative (though odd) VGA box I bought for the system. You’ve got games to satisfy just about anyone there ranging from arcade hits (Hydro Thunder is particularly great) to a couple of outstanding role playing games (Pirates of Arcadia is so good it makes owning the system worthwhile) to sports titles (anything from the NFL 2K series compares well to the famed Madden lineup) to innovative titles that used fishing rods, etc.

By the way, you can get Skies of Arcadia for the Nintendo GameCube and it’s every bit as good as the original. Heck, it is almost the same as the original save for a few more wrinkles thrown in and a soundtrack that was compressed too much for my liking. If you own a GameCube (or a Wii and a GameCube controller), Skies of Arcadia is a title you absolutely need. I still prefer the Dreamcast version because the soundtrack is noticeably clearer, but the GameCube port is certainly worthwhile.

When the Dreamcast hit the streets in September 1999, it simply blew the Nintendo 64 and Sony Playstation out of the water in terms of technological sophistication. By 2001, Sega pulled the plug on the system in the U.S. and got out of the console hardware business completely.

So, what the heck happened? Why did such a great system just up and die? The answer is two-fold at least.

For one thing, Sega had a rotten reputation when the company released the Dreamcast. This was the same company that released the Sega CD add-on for the Genesis and then discontinued support of it in a hurry. This is the same company that released the 32X add-on for the Genesis and cut that one loose shortly after it was released. By the time the Sega Saturn was released, the company had a terrible image problem and that plagued the poor Saturn.

That horrible reputation spilled over to the Dreamcast. Sega worked hard to earn it’s reputation as a company that would dump hardware on the market then not support it well enough. Gamers, apparently, didn’t want to get burned again.

In 2000, the Playstation 2 was released and gamers tended to flock to that console rather than the Dreamcast. Why? The Playstation 1 was a major hit and people expected even greater things with the PS2 (they weren’t disappointed). Furthermore, the Playstation 2 was backward compatible with those great PS1 games and it had a DVD player.

Yes, oddly, that was a big deal back in 2000. The Playstation had a DVD player and the Dreamcast didn’t. That lack of a DVD player, believe it or not, had an impact on sales.

At any rate, the Playstation 2 clearly dominated that generation of consoles to such an extent that Sega simply took its ball and went home.

That is a true shame on a number of levels. The Dreamcast is a great system that had a lot to offer, but Sega had lost the trust of consumers and people were upset that a blasted GD-ROM drive didn’t play DVDs.

The saddest part of the Sega story, perhaps, is that its absence from the market left a bit of a power vacuum. With only Nintendo and Sony left standing in the console business, that left room for Microsoft to slither in and introduce the Xbox.

God. Microsoft. Haven’t they ruined enough already?

At any rate, I still play the heck out of my Dreamcast. For people who love emulation, you’ll find plenty of support for the Dreamcast. People have written emulators that run everything from Atari 2600 to Neo Geo titles on the Dreamcast. Fortunately, the old Sega system has life in it yet.