What else? GAS PRICES

American car manufacturers are REALLY shortsighted. Take the Geo Metro, for example. A nifty little car; gets about 50 miles to the gallon. Quentin Tarantino drove one around for the longest time – even after he was completely 100% famous. Oh. Right. They stopped making that one. Then there was the fully electric EV-1. Oh yeah. One couldn’t buy an EV-1 – one could only lease. GM pulled them off the market and took them away from the people that had them. No more EV-1.

We’ve always bought American – trying to do our bit for the economy – supporting the U.S. autoworker, blah blah blah. We felt even better about not simply buying American, but for owning two Fords, due to Ford’s progressive policy on providing health coverage for domestic partners.

British Petroleum is doing this unheard of thing, called smart business policies that take into effect the changing economy and global need for fuel alternatives. They have been working with solar power, which extends the arm of Big Oil to the construction biz of solarizing homes. They now do this thing where, for every celebrity that hires BP to completely solarize their home, BP will solarize the home of a low income dweller for free. Kinda cool. And they do it here in the U.S. of A.

I am quite worried about the U.S. autoworkers – one look at the depressed and crumbled pit of despair and despoiler of human dignity that is Detroit - a huge crystal ball to the rest of the U.S. auto manufacturers and the towns that they are housed in with respect to what is shortly to come. I hope they have all sent their various applications and CV’s into the other guys in preparation for the impending horror – the horror that will be the auto-worker losing their job first, so the top of the corporate food chain can keep their shirt.

I heard a rumor that PWM’s – (People With Money) are purchasing up bulk amounts of fuel – like commodities – to be on hand for them should the time come that it is rationed to the rest of us folk.

In real life, not rumor, those of us who are already on a budget must do something differently. Here in Los Angeles, we have people who live on minimum wage that are pawning their stuff to put gas in their car to get to work – there is no subway that will take one west of Highland, since the folks in Beverly Hills, Bel Aire, et al, don’t want that element coming into their part of town. A bus ride is 2-3 hours.

Manpants and I have been feeling mighty guilty for quite a while because one of our vehicles was the Explorer Sport – a 15 gallon smaller version of the regular ole Ford Explorer that gets about 18 miles to the gallon. It has been great for the dogs and great for the various trips; great for being able to actually see when we drive, due to the sheer volume of other sight-blocking SUV's on the road here – but having it in this day and age has been eating at our souls. So, Friday, Manpants took it to the Toyota dealer and traded it in on the zippy new, 40 miles to the gallon, Toyota Yaris. Estimated yearly savings are that of a really decent vacation someplace beautiful. I have a feeling, based upon the large number of Yaris cars that were sold over the weekend at the one car dealership we used, that we’re going to be seeing a lot of this.

Right now would be a really good time for GM to pull their corporate heads out of the oil drum and re-introduce assembly of the Geo Metro and the EV-1.

OBEY YOUR THIRST!

Remember the old ad campaign for that soft drink that told kids in order to be cool, they shouldn't pay attention to commercials, but they should simply obey their thirst and drink what they want - namely THEIR product? Which of course made it no longer cool because if everyone was doing it, then where does that leave you.

con·form·i·ty ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-fôrm-t)
n. pl. con·form·i·ties

Action or behavior in correspondence with socially accepted standards, conventions, rules, or laws: conformity to university regulations.

I am somewhat of a non conformist. When people are getting their hair cut short - I go long. When people order Lattes, I order coffee. When everyone is wearing UGG boots, I go back to 1980's Tony Lama cowboy boots. Why anyone wears UGG boots in Southern California is beyond me anyway. Ladies, if you are over the age of 11, UGG boots with a mini skirt is just wrong.

When I first started this blog, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. At first, I thought I would write in a character that was neither female, nor male - a drag queen perhaps. I used a picture of one of my eyes as my identi-photo. Of course the blog quickly became a format to vent, as me, the various observations of wackiness I see from day to day; the senior citizen couple on Crescent Heights Boulevard that walk their white duck on a leash; a man throwing his toupee out the window of his car on Wilshire Boulevard; a guy inexplicably wearing a dunce cap whilst sitting on the "bank" of the "L.A. River." Stuff like that.

Now it seems that oodles of goofy bloggers are using one of their eyes to identify their bloggy selves. So, in the spirit of revealing a bit more of myself - how very un-anonymous (don't worry, I'm still keeping "Millicent" as my nom de plume)of me, and the fact that a picture of my eye is soooo 2005, I've updated things a bit. Hope you don't mind.

Oh, and while I sit and think of something to say - though early June Gloom has settled over Los Angeles, which clouds the thinking, I share a couple links to things that just make me laugh out loud. Enjoy.

Insincere Civility

Barbra By Halstead (my dear friend, the genius)

Salad Fingers