We’re getting close to $4.00 now. Again. For like the third year in a row.

I understand there are wars going on. I understand that there is a supply and demand issue. I understand there are capped outputs. And I understand that oil is at a high price.

So why hasn’t anybody fixed it yet?

Why haven’t the countries producing oil ramped up production to offset any oil that isn’t flowing from countries currently going through self inflicted civil wars.

They’re more than capable of doing it. They regularly slow up and speed down production to meet their regular demand. So c’mon Saudi Arabia, ramp it up while Libya is getting their pipeline back on track or while Iraq is working out their political states and figuring out who’s getting paid.

There’s more than enough oil to last us this lifetime. Let’s start tapping it.

Let’s face it. America is in an economic crisis and one of the biggest driving factors out there is our fuel prices. We are, unfortunately, continuously dependent on driving. To the grocery store, to work, to school, to child care, etc, etc. We have no choice but to drive which is largely due to the fact that our infrastructure in most major cities require that we drive. The buses are slow, overfilled, and take too long. The trains don’t run to the right places. Taxi’s cost too much. And most people live too far to either walk or ride a bicycle.

So the oil companies and producers have us by the balls. Literally.

Obama wants to fix our economy? Figure out how to get our gas prices down.

I commute 40 miles round trip every other week on my motorcycle to keep my monthly gas costs down.

The every other week, I don’t have a choice but to drive my truck. This turns my commute into closer to 60 miles round trip because I have to use a different route.

All said and done, I spend roughly 200-220/month on gas, which would be closer to 400 if I didn’t have my bike.

Now cut gas prices in half back, or even 2.50/gal.

I just saved 70 dollars a month on gas.

I don’t need a silly tax break. I need a silly gas price break.

Not only would I be more likely to turn around and spend that 70 dollars/month back in the community. I’d be more likely to travel to go to places and spend outside of my local community because it would be more affordable.

I may be one out of 300 million people in the US, but I’m sure this goes for plenty of others.

Drop gas prices back and the economy will fix itself.

“A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home.”

“NC Pre-K (before this year known as More at Four) is a state-funded education program designed to “enhance school readiness” for four year-olds.

The mother, who doesn’t wish to be identified at this time, says she made her daughter a lunch that contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. A state inspector assessing the pre-K program at the school said the girl also needed a vegetable, so the inspector ordered a full school lunch tray for her. While the four-year-old was still allowed to eat her home lunch, the girl was forced to take a helping of chicken nuggets, milk, a fruit and a vegetable to supplement her sack lunch.“

Read the story here

This would have me raging pretty pissed off. In fact, I’m seriously annoyed enough about it to write about it. My son isn’t old enough to go to school yet, but if he was, I’d also be packing his lunches. Not only because I, as a parent, know what he will and will not eat (luckily he’s really not that picky of an eater), but also because I’m young enough to remember that the crap they fed us in school, wasn’t exactly healthy to begin with.

And to replace a turkey and cheese sandwich with chicken nuggets, that we all know were fried, is just ridiculous. The mom missed a vegetable. My god, she covered every single other basis of a healthy lunch, but didn’t toss in a carrot stick.

I understand that schools are basically day care at that age, but at what point do we need to put our feet down and say enough is enough. There’s obviously a reason this parent is sending their kid to school with a packed lunch and regardless of that reason, nobody should be able to force them to eat something other then what they were sent with.

Someone needs to take a good look at the policies and make some adjustments, because if this happened to me, I’d be doing my best to get that inspector fired. That’s just taking it too far.

As most of you can imagine, the internet is abuzz with whether or not what this guy did was right or wrong. I’m a member on a number of forums across various topics and it truly amazed me to see the reactions from the different genres.

“He was too harsh”

“He was dead on”

“Sounds like the kid was a spoiled brat”

“Sounds like he made her do too much”

“Sounds like he hasn’t made enough”

“His parenting is the reason she got to that place to begin with”

Now without knowing this guy, or his daughter, or the way he raised her to begin with, it’s hard to say what in all reality was the proper was to enforce this punishment. Sure he explained his side of the story, but who’s side was actually true? Is she a spoiled brat? Or does he treat her like Cinderalla? Hard to say, chances are we’ll never actually know the truth.

The biggest thing I’ve noticed with today’s society though, is that most teenagers (those born roughly 1995 to 1999) seem to appear to think they are owed everything in life. From TV to iPhones, Cars to laptops, the freedom of will to do anything that they want. They get spoiled, they never get disciplined, and they continue on in life not truly knowing what a real kick in the ass is.

Most of this is parenting as much as it is society, although society deems it okay to get married, have kids, and get divorced in your early 20s. Thus leaving most parents single, raising their kids alone on a single income, and not having the time or energy to be a parent. Let’s shove the kids in front of the TV, computer, video game, whatever else there is instead of sitting down, forgetting that we’re tired, and busting out the coloring book, or throwing the ball around the yard, or even walking around the neighborhood.

Nope, most parents would schluff their kids off on someone else then actually be a parent and instill some responsibility in said kids which would then provide them with some sort of life skill.

Sounds to me like this Dad has tried to give his daughter responsibility by issuing her chores. Sounds like she’s lazy and doesn’t want to do them. Sounds like he’s doing everything he can to keep her busy enough to stay out of trouble. She could very well be out doing drugs, having sex, and then talking shit on Facebook. Then how would society deem him? Probably as a failure as a dad for letting her fall so far down the rabbit hole. Instead they deem him as a failure for being too harsh on his punishment.

At least the bullets didn’t go through her head.

My first experience with Google’s Android operating system was on the Nexus One shortly after the launch back in 2010. I was also coming from an iPhone, so this was a huge step into the unknown, although I was pretty fed up with the iPhone anyways so I needed something new.

Loved my Nexus One, and she loved me back. I’m a PC guy, and I like to tinker. I like having flexibility in my software and due to this, I fell in love with Android. So many possibilities to be had with this device, especially since unlike the iPhone, it was hackable out of the box.

Open source, roms flowing, she gave me a lot of good times.

Until my power button died.

Then I had to move on.

Google does a pretty good job of releasing a new phone yearly and in doing so they also keep up with their newest version of Android. In 2011, they announced Ice Cream Sandwich, otherwise known as ICS.

Unfortunately, the phone they released with ICS, the Galaxy Nexus
, just didn’t match up to the spec I wanted in a phone. I read tons of reviews on the phone, and just decided it wasn’t the phone for me.

Since I wasn’t going to stick with the Nexus line, I made sure I stayed with the HTC line since they always seemed to have the best developer support. Especially in terms of XDA (best forum ever for modding your HTC device) This led me to my HTC Amaze.

Unfortunately, the Amaze came with Gingerbread instead of ICS, and damnit, I want me some ICS!

The developers are trying, but there just isn’t much they can do yet.

So in the mean time.

We’re still waiting. Possibly the end of March, possibly further out in the year, possibly even never (some rumors about the Amaze going byebye even though it’s a brand new phone)

HTC! I’m hungry, where’s my Ice Cream Sandwich.

Or are the consumers about to get super screwed.

I’m going with, super screwed.

Billions of dollars are going to the nearly defunct housing sector in this country. With thousands of homes in foreclosure and nowhere to sell them, we are slowly sinking further and further down in selling prices. Not only can most sellers not sell, they can’t compete with the foreclosure and short sale prices that are plaguing us everywhere, in every community, in every type of demographic neighborhood. This is a buyers market, assuming you can get a loan.

So what do we do? We give out billions of dollars to make sure nobody else goes into a foreclosure. So what’s this going to do to the rest of the economy? The current inventory of foreclosures is going to dry up, housing prices are going to skyrocket, and we’re going to be in the same place in 15 years where too many people buy houses they can’t afford. Sound familiar? It should, because we just finished going through it in the last five years.

I’m in the market to buy myself. It’s going to be a few months, but I find myself wondering what this is going to do to short term pricing with the current inventory of thousands of empty houses in the market, not to mention the thousands that haven’t even been listed yet. Am I still going to be able to afford that little condo, in a decent neighborhood, for a decent price that would allow me to live comfortably? Or am I going to have to start looking cheaper, in terrible areas for a smaller place and not be so secure. I’m fairly certain we haven’t bottomed out on pricing yet, which is why I’m still waiting, but is this going to prevent us from hitting the bottom?

I find it ridiculous that our government continues to bail out those people that have put us where we are today. Our economy isn’t bad because of the housing crisis. Our economy isn’t bad because there aren’t any jobs. Our economy is terrible because the money is being spent in the wrong places and at the wrong times by those in charge of keeping our country going.

Why aren’t we spending more of that money on fixing our infrastructure, which would in turn create more jobs and promote spending by those with new found money from said jobs. Let’s fix up our “ghetto” areas and help those that are less fortunate get a new paint job, or fix that hole in the fence, maybe even get that driveway paved so the kids aren’t cutting up their feet on the gravel and rocks that litter the failing concrete.

How about helping out the people who truly are in need, instead of those coming here and just saying they need help? How many able bodied people are just standing around, doing nothing, but collecting tax payers money because that’s the easy way, even though it’s not so easy.

So, why are we spending billions to bail out the banks again when there are plenty of other places to be spending it. Because we can, and that’s half the problem with America today.

I was flipping through the news earlier today when this little gem caught my eye:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/07/tech/gaming-gadgets/apple-tv-best-buy/index.html?hpt=hp_bn6

Best Buy is throwing out feelers about an Apple TV.

No, not the little box that you can hook up to your HDTV, an actual 1080p high def flat screen TV with iOS and the capability to download applications. (that should save you some reading) Add in a ridiculously high price point, and you have your typical Apple piece of hardware.

To me, it’s just one more thing for the Apple Fan boys to start drooling over. A new Apple product! oh joy! Let’s go stand in line for hours while waiting for these to go on sale so I can be the first person ever to own one.

Thanks, I think I’ll pass.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t completely hate Apple products. I’ve owned two ipods (classics, both dead within two years), an iphone (with a broken power button), and two Apple TVs (both still working at this time). By far, the best purchase I’ve ever made were the Apple TVs, especially after I jailbroke them and put XBMC on them, and made them actually usable. Oh wait, I guess that goes against the Apple mantra of “lock em down!”

I’m sure it’s going to be a great TV and I’m sure plenty of people are going to buy them. But seriously, do you really need to play Angry Birds on your 42″ TV? The Movies and TV shows on iTunes are already far overpriced, so how many people are really going to pay 1600 bucks, then pay 5 bucks every time want a movie in high def. Sounds to me it’s just going to be one more step towards having a giant iPod touch in your living room.

I’m not falling for it, not am I going to buy one. The ATV 2G does what I need it to. It let’s me watch movies, TV, check YouTube, Net Flicks (if I wanted to pay for it) and stream just about any picture, video, or music from my computer (which so happens to be a PC)

So save your money. Take that 1600 dollars a TV is going to cost you, buy a 500 dollar TV, an Apple TV 2G (100 bucks), an iPod Touch (200 bucks) and go spend the rest on a vacation.

Seriously Apple, Google already has this market, you should just stay out of it and figure out another way to take over our lives.

Download Android Eating Apple iPad Wallpaper

Otherwise, you’re in the right place now.

Same look, same writer, same place, just different content.

I think I’m going to finally make this website what it was supposed to be. A discussion site, where I’m going to talk about stuff.

It might be stuff you want to read about.

It might be stuff you really don’t care about.

It might be stuff that brought you here looking for something in particular, but it really wasn’t what you wanted, so you’re going to leave anyways.

Doesn’t matter to me. Stick around and read. Take one glance and bounce. Come back another day looking for something interesting. The world is a free place, so by all means, bookmark me or don’t.

Let’s see what happens shall we?