Guess What Fucktard...

I do have a license to operate my 4x4 off highway vehicle. I don't destroy the land around me anymore then your feet do. I don't violate private property any more then the other 1 in four Massholes with 4x4 vehicles.

But what I really love about your posting is that you demonize four wheel drivers because we scare animals away from hunting grounds. I haven't found it yet but I suspect that somewhere on another forum S.M. from Fallriver would like to see hunting outlawed.

Now, don't get your panties all in a bunch. It's not as if the state parks are letting anyone destroy the wildlife. They've asked us to stay off certain dunes in Truro and we do. They find co-operating has had no impact on land use or wildlife.

It would also seem that more Citizens of the Commonwealth favor off road fun then support your blanket ban. Give me somewhere to use my 4x4 other then through the potholes on main street. It's not like I have the option of buying some land and building my own adventure park. I've got 13 acres at my disposal but if I knock down one of my own damn trees I can be sent to jail.

I Really Want To Know What Rachel Thinks About This

Today just keeps getting better and better!

Photo Taken With My iPhone

My red Tacoma is no longer MY red Tacoma. She had 59,000 miles behind her when we met. We travelled 5 years and 63,000 miles together. I bought her the best whenever she needed it. I creeped under her to change the oil every 3 months. I pulled her plugs and changed her rotors myself. We had a relationship that few people still share with their cars. But it was time to go. Last summer I asked the family mechanic to go over her and tell me what she needed. Do the things that I don't have the tools for. Al sat me down and said to me what I needed to hear. Al said he knows what my standards are and it would be close to Eight Grand to bring it up to my standards. It would be $4,000 just to keep it going another couple years. For 2 months I waffled over whether or not to trade up or fix up. When my Taco lost $1,000 in trade in value after labor day weekend I went shopping. It breaks my heart to let her go. I feel like I've betrayed my wife. I feel like I've shot 'Old Yeller.'

I did love my truck. Years after I bought it I would still sit on the steps just looking at it. The same way I would sit looking at my boat. Proud to have something so nice. Happy. In fact, one of the neighbors offered to buy it from me last week. He's seen me change the oil quarterly and wash it every week for years and figured I must have taken care of it.

I'm really going to miss that truck. So will Marty. I knew sooner or later someone would call me about borrowing the pick-up truck to move something. I didn't think it would be less than 12 hours after surrendering the keys to the dealership but I'm not surprised who called. If I had to list the top 5 people who would ask to use my truck Marty would be on it. Dude, sorry about that. No truck moving for me anymore. It's just as well. I'm still going to Physical Therapy twice a week for my ankle.

Big Blue there is by coincidence the colors of the school I teach at. It wasn't planned that way, it's the only color the FJ Cruiser comes in that I can stand. I didn't want another burgandy colored truck. My Taco was special. The new truck is 4,300 pounds. It is loaded. List price was over $37,000. It sat on the lot for 11 months. I paid nowhere close to that. Negotiations were rough. They pissed me off at times but I got what I wanted for a price I can live with and 60 payments that don't crush me. $13,000 over base model will get you the following toys:

Power Everything
Racing Exhaust
Billstein Shocks
Custom Seats
Subwoofer
Roof Rack
Rock Rails
Skid Plates (under carriage armor plating)
Tow Package
Spare Tire Cover
Floor Mats
A First Aid Kit (could be a whole post on it's own)
Full Size Spare with Matching Rim
Cruise Control
A/C
Parking Sonar
6 Disk In Dash CD Changer
Some Sort of Compass, Thermometer and Tilt Indicator Thingy
Roof Rack
Mirror Mounted Headlights (not turn signals like most people think, they're diffuse treeline lights)

And best of all... The stock wheels are 30 inch tires on 17 inch rims. This one has 30 inch tires on 16 inch rims. That extra inch of balloonyness pays off in taming Massachusetts' craptacular road surfaces.

My only complaint about the truck is the poor visibility in pretty much every direction. This is not a commuter car for someone heading to the city. This is also not a car for dropping one kid off at soccer and another at band practice. It will be a while before I worry about that. This is a truck meant for driving over anything. If you don't care about the price of gas going into a 19 gallon tank every week this car is great. It's perfect for the commute from my driveway straight to my reserved parking space and home again. (Cue up the Dead Milkmen "No fuckin way am I going to die in Exxon's war! Which by cosmic irony was the first song to play out of the 6 random CD's I put in. It was kind of creepy. The next song was Phish and the one after that was Duran Duran.)

All it needs is remote starting (yay automatic tranny, no more freezing mornings for me!) and a winch bumper.

I have no buyers remorse but I did love that Tacoma. I'll miss her.

What The Fuck?

In the last month I've been given over three hundred grand in credit to buy a house and a car. I can't seem to buy either?

What do poor people do?

Car dealers don't seem to be interested in selling me the car I want because they're not going to get to rape me in the F&I.

Houses have yet to come down in price despite overwhelming foreclosure rates.

Maybe Kevin was right.

I should stop acting so uppity.

At least I get $200 from Apple.

Dear Toyota,

My first car was a used '84 Corolla. My next car was a used '92 Corolla. That one got me through college. A '96 Tacoma got me to grad school and back. All three were used and still ran like a charm. I am now ready to trade in my Taco for an FJ Cruiser. This will be the first new car I've ever purchased. Perhaps it's me but I thought good faith negotiations with a salesman would lead to a sale.

I asked Toyota.com for quotes from the 3 closest dealerships. One never responded. I suspected you knew because I got an email from Toyota Dealership Follow-up asking if they contacted me or not.

Another dealership replied right away and we talked for a couple days about what I was looking for. Then that sales person stopped responding to my emails and phone calls.

The third dealer seemed to be genuine in trying to help me. I test drove a car and liked it. I did want to look at a couple more cars before I made a decision but I decided to go with the third dealership. I started negotiating. I don't need to see the paper to know when I'm being 'four squared'. Sadly I've seen these tricks before at used car lots. I warned the salesman not to insult me with such manipulative tactics. I made my intention to purchase the car very clear. I gave my best offer for price and we began to discuss my trade-in, my '96 Tacoma.

We had nothing more then a handshake but we agreed on $28,000 for JTEBU11F270036722 provided they could offer me $3,500. I was initially told they only wanted to offer me $3,000 but bring it in and my good buddy would try to offer me more. We could have closed today.

I'm sorry if I don't need dealer financing. I've saved 40% down and my credit union pre-approved me for a much better rate then you offer. I was clear about my trade in being a deal breaker before I drove in. I can afford this car but I'm not going to over extend. I got a sorry no can do for my trade and my salesman even tried to show me places to sell my trade in myself for even more money. I was given the brush off to stew about losing a good deal over $500. Your boy certainly knows his psychology. So do I.

As I said, I'm familiar with tricks and manipulation. I recognize when I'm getting jerked around. Before I even got home I had an email from my chum telling me not to give up. He'll call the GM on vacation and get me that $500. Then I got the voice mail that he'll do it only if I can close this deal so they can get the Tacoma out to auction by Thursday. I wish my windows in the house were as transparent as your salesforce.

I'm not in the habit of jerking people around. I don't appreciate it when I'm still being jerked around even after I've warned someone to stop. I've given Toyota three chances to sell me a car this week. So far the best experience I've had was from the dealership that blew me off up front.

I don't really expect you to do anything for me. I just wanted to say goodbye.

Uh Oh Over Flow

It's Friday morning. The world is still here. Some folks believe the world is going to end this morning.

Bin Laden Trades

Missing Nuclear Bombs

Bush was on TV last night. He reminds me of how worn down Lincoln looked after a couple years on the job. Being president grinds you up physically. I don't think Bush was all that healthy to begin with. Now he looks like he's ready for hospice. Something's got him worried. It shows.

I've been wrong before but I'm calling today a red herring.

There is a missing nuke. It was transferred on presidential orders. It was to be used against Iran. Someone noticed the nukes were gone and talked. That man is a hero.


Plan B?

Now the missing nuke will be squirrelled away for a rainy day. We'll all have forgotten about today in a few months. When the bomb is used we'll say see I told you something was up last september. No one will care by then. They'll say sure. Neocons stole a bomb and hid it just to make you look like chicken little. They spent billions of dollars to fool you into thinking something was up in the stock market. Then they hid the bomb for months knowing they could be caught with it. And they're using it now? Who has money to spend on the Bin Laden Trades just to fool a bunch of tinfoil hat bloggers looking for conspiracy theories.

Plausable denialability. Limited hangout. Sound bite.

The Fed injected cash into the banking system a couple weeks ago. Right around the amount of money that the Bin Laden Trades cost to issue. And right around the settlement date. Sounds crazy doesn't it?

It probably is crazy.

Plan on going to work Monday.

Social Contract

Funny thing. Out of the blue, the guy who never called me back sent me pre-approval for two hundred eighty five thousand dollars.

There are eight 3 bedroom houses to choose from.

Two of them are in the town I work in.

I guess I'm good enough to hold their childrens lives in my hand but not call them neighbor.

Computer is killing me

Here's a little bit of fucked up trivia.

If you have a webpage in Safari open on your iPhone (you do have an iPhone now don't you?) If you open a page on the built in browser that has a phone number on it, clicking on it dials the phone. That's a nice feature.

The bug is that the feature carries over to TCP/IP addresses. So if you have an iPhone (why do I douubt that you do? Doesn't every one?) Click on this:

192.168.0.1

Now click on this:

http://66.30.66.128/

So it dials the bad number and doesn't recognize the good and proper html for a real website.