I’m going to take this post to explain a little bit about myself. Mostly, I’m a rational human being. I tend to rely on facts and reasoning to make my decisions, not really accepting something because “that’s the way it is”. This is something that lead to a powerful internal struggle with my faith some years back, before I ended up on the path that I did. But during that quest of mine I explored many different options as far as what was out there.

Among them was astrology. Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: this is just some bullshit superstition mumbo-jumbo. And to a point, you’d be right. The horoscopes on your Facebook profile or in the newspaper are bullshit. Those creepy gypsy fortune tellers are probably bullshit as well. But when I talk about astrology, I’m talking primarily zodiac charts. I was a heavy skeptic at first, then the more time went by, the more I saw more and more coincidences in what people are like in correlation to when they were born. It sounds stupid and ridiculous. It doesn’t make sense, and I can’t explain it. 

I’ve found more and more symptoms of astrological compatibility as time goes by. From being able to gage how people will react based on their birthday to the people I’ve found myself attracted to. I know I’m not going to make any believers out of this post, but for those curios go pick up this book, it’s like a manual for people and has been most helpful in my journeys. Check it out.

So anyways, with this in mind, I happened to have a conversation struck up with my last night with one of my brother’s comrades from work. Me and this girl get to talking, and the more the conversation goes the more I feel like I’m having a conversation with myself. It wasn’t simply one of those instances where we have a lot in common as far as liking a lot of the same things, but this was an instance of almost everything we said to each other, be it our likes or dislikes, personalities, character flaws, wants, outlooks on life, etc. It was starting to weird me out so I cut her off mid-sentence and asked her what her birthday was, sure enough we had the same one. 

I found myself talking to my astrological doppleganger. It was strange, talking to someone who feels the same way on most things that I do. Its as though you can’t ask “How do you feel about ____”, because you already know.

I’m a bit curious how to handle someone exactly like myself. It’ll be interesting.

She’s off touring the country right now, so check her out at emily rose music dot com and see if she’s coming near you.

It’s funny how much changes in a year and how much doesn’t. I was going over my postings from around this time last year. Much of my life personally is different. I’m not working right now. Im almost out of school, I’m working on what to do with my life, and I can’t make up my mind about how I feel about a lot.

No matter how hard I try, some things that I still felt a year ago I still feel even though I know that I shouldn’t. It’s not good for me. But I can’t help it. I wish there was something I cold do about it, but I can’t. Some old feelings just don’t go away. It sucks, and I wish there was something I could do about it. I find myself wondering “what if” a lot about decisions I made last year and how my life might be different because of it. I don’t have a lot of regrets about anything that I did. But I do question some of the decisions I made because looking back. In retrospect I wonder if I would be happier now. I wonder if I had taken more chances in some aspects in some instances or less chances in others that my life would be better.

I am fortunate to have so many people that I care about and that care about me. In many ways, I’m glad that things are the way they are. But in other ways it tares me up inside to think about it. To think about how some things could be different really makes me think. While a lot of people have gotten hurt in the path of events that have evolved over the past year and a half or so, I question weather or not I have been my biggest casualty. I have set myself up for disappointment too many times. I have been the bad guy too many times. I have put other people at risk for my own selfish good too many times. Looking back, I don’t really know what to say about it all.

For those, interested, this is the post that really got me thinking about everything again. I look at my hits and see where people are coming from, and one of them pointed at this post. So I read over it again. Reading up on related posts such as this one didn’t make me feel any better either. 

Least year my entire summer was about concerts, parties, and girls. This summer is shaping up to be about making difficult decisions, getting my life together, and seriously finding myself. 

Thus far, not a lot of luck. On top of getting my own shit straight I still have to deal with all thee feelings that continue to stare me in the face, and still, I can’t do shit about it. Then I have people who feel a way about me that I don’t feel the same about. Life never, ever gets any easier.

*sigh*

The only real problems were that parking was a nightmare, so I ended up parking at the MGM Grand. Cool because it was free. Awful though as the walk back was about a mile and a half. Not cool after spending 4 hours in the sun and not having eaten breakfast.

Aside from my long walk the only issue was the news media who was getting in everyone’s faces as they were trying to walk by, so there were a few people that we couldn’t even see. So if you were watching some annoying girl on Channel 4 with a bunch of angry people booing in the background, that’s why.

Overall it was good though. If you watched the news you saw Kwame getting his ass handed to him by the people. That didn’t truly capture the spirit of the fans, but my video does. It’ll be up some time in the next few days after I edit and polish it up a bit.

For now, here’s some teaser pictures. You can see the rest of them from Campus Martias and Heart Plaza here.

It was a good time, if you couldn’t make it, sorry for ya.

Now it gets weird. Think for a second about what kind of guy might be calling himself Uncle Ron. Immediately, I thought of everyone’s favourity cartoon homosexual pedophile, Herbert from Family Guy.

Boy was I wrong. As it turned out, the real “Uncle Ron” was even more disturbing. He gave me a good look, while preparing to service this young boy with a pink bracelet.

What’s disturbing here isn’t that Uncle Ron looks like an ex-con or someone who traded in his Harley for an ice cream truch. Or that he might even be selling cocaine out of that truck. The part of all of this that will frighten you beyond words is that you have probably seen Uncle Ron before.

Now you’re asking “Where would I have seen this creepy dude before?”

Uhm, ever see Clerks 2?

Yah. Take a better look.

Needless to say, I didn’t get any ice cream.

Behold, my 1988 Chevy Caprice.

With this not being the most fuel-efficient car on the planet and gas getting more and more disgusting, I started looking into ways to increase gas mileage. I did all the standard stuff:

• Lighten your load.
• Inflate your tires.
• Clean up the air filter (this sucker is carbureted after all).
• Drive properly.
• Avoid rush hour, etc.

I tried all of this with a few more things and saw no results. Here’s a few facts about my 1988 Caprice:

Style: 4-Door full-size sedan
Seating: 6 (max)
Drive: Rear wheel
Engine Size: 5.0L V8
Engine Type: 305 small block with feedback fuel system
Tank Size: 20g
Carbon Footprint: 10.8 tons of C02 / year
Petrol Consumption: 20.1 barrels / year

It’s not a small car by any stretch, but on gas it’s not too bad. On average, I can pull 350 miles out of a single tank. That’s 17.5mpg, which still sucks but considering my last 2 cars got 12.5 mpg, only 250 miles out a of a single tank.

Behold those gas-guzzling beasts of burden:

And in the same breath, shitty gas mileage was never so ugly, or pretty (save for the 700 series BMWs of the same era).

So with gasoline getting disgustingly expensive, I decided to test out something that seemed shaky at best and engine devastating at worst: Acetone.

Acetone, for those who don’t know, is the active ingredient in nail polish. It is also said to be an octane booster for gasoline and, in something that’s probably been on Myth Busters that I failed to watch may increase gas mileage.

The idea works like this: pour the right amount of acetone into your tank after fill up. It works its magic, gives the car a little octane boost, should clean out parts of the fuel system, and in theory, increase your mpg.

But there’s 1 catch: the use of good gasoline. What is “good” and “bad” gas? The difference in what kind of Oil, how it’s refined, and who sells it. A lot of the best oil comes from Nigeria and who drills in Nigeria? 3 big players, Dutch Royal Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron.

Lets go down the list here. There are some Mobil stations in Michigan, and even fewer ExxonMobil stations. Their gas isn’t considered any better than anyone else’s by performance standards. Chevron many gearheads will swear by. GM does all their testing with it. Except, there are 0 Chevron stations in Michigan. So that’s out of the question. Then there’s Shell. The countryside of Detroit is littered with Shell stations, except they’re usually 10-15 cents more than every other gas station. Which means that the cost of the extra gas would cancel out any gains I made in MPG unless they were substantial gains. Since if I got any gain, with my car I would expect at most 10-15% increase, it would not be worth it. Any money I’d save on MPGs would instead to to Shell instead of my pocket.

So I had to make do and used random gas stations from around the area. I picked up a jug of acetone from Meijer along with a funnel and a measuring cup (2-3 oz / 10 g recommended dose) and I was off on my way.

I first recorded my data with how well I did during my fill-up:

343 Miles / 19.089g = 18mpg using crappy Speedway gasoline.

However, I was unable to find even a decent gas station to gas up with my acetone, so I had to use Valero, which is equally as crappy. These were my results:

355.3 miles @ 20.4 gallons = 17.41mpg. That was a mix of 5oz of Acetone in my 20g tank.

Next I tried BPAmoco. Then Mobil. Then Sunoco, costco, etc. I’m not going to post the results because I stopped recording them. It was all the same stuff. 20g ~= 350m depending on how much of it was freeway and how much was highway. With or without the acetone, my car fits the bill doing just as well a the EPA estimates on it are: 15mpg city, and 22mpg highway, for an estimated overall figure of 17mpg (according to FuelEconomy.gov), although I can usually to 1-2mph better than that.

Let me say this again: Acetone didn’t do a damn thing for your gas mileage. Of course YMMV on this one, and maybe it’s that my car has been running at peak performance because it’s been well maintained (mostly in thanks to the previous owners). However, it may be different for you. The web is littered with people who swear by Acetone for their fill-ups. I don’t share that sentiment, and am not willing to offset the cost with criminally expensive gasoline.

If you are under a different circumstance and want to try it for yourself, you have nothing to lose. My total materials cost was about $9 for everything, so you don’t have a lot to lose. Just don’t go expecting a great leap in mpg, any increase is good, and be smart about it, and do your research first.

Just be a realist about it.

Click for full size.

I get $10 for the referral and you get $25 for signing up. Don’t want to use it? Sign up anyways then just send the money to john@cruzweb.net, I get some cash for about 2 minutes of your time and I will love you unconditionally forever.

It’s not sexy, edgy, or by any stretch of the imagination, something you want to admit that you are affiliated with let alone own (or let anybody else know that you own for that matter). This is a car that few ourside of Ford are willing to admit that they liked. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t even seen on in person until a year ago when some mexicans were selling a serious beater. I spend a couple hours looking up this car because I couldn’t find a whole lot on it or anybody in person willing to talk about it. I was literally beside myself when I saw one in mint condition in the movie No Country for Old Men.

However talks about the fabled Ford Grenada made the front page of the business section of the Detroit News last week, which I noticed as I was cleaning the papers up. Of all the important things to cover in the world of business, this is not it. For whatever reason beyond my understanding, staff writer Manny Lopez wrote a column titled Obama’s rip on auto infamy is a clunker. For even more reasons beyond my understanding, editors approved and printed it.

Now it’s not uncommon that as Americans we read things that we find rediculous. Same for stuff on TV, the radio, internet, etc. However this article is something that’s beyond pointless and absurd.

The article blasts Barack Obama’s claim that the Ford Grenada was “the worst car Detroit ever buit”. The article flow looks like this

1. Claim that no matter how bad the Grenada was, Detroit has made a lot worse cars.
2. France and Yugoslavia have made worse cars.
3. Quote Obama again re: how much the car sucked and he thought it would fall apart.
4. Say that all cars suck compared to what Obama drives.
5. Mention that few cars from the 70s were good enough to survive.
6. Talk about how almost ALL cars from the 70s sucked and were a pain.
7. Talk about how Ford is a different company now.
8. Claim that this is a failed campaign tactic by Obama.

That’s if you don’t feel like reading the article, and I don’t blame you. I’m not a fan of Obama’s, however I don’t see the point at all in writing this article. The grenada WAS a bad car. So how is anybody, be it the next guy on the street begging for change or the guy running for the presidency begging for change at fault for making this statement?

Not only that, but the article is all over the place and doesn’t really even make sense as there isn’t real sense to it. The right defense to “your car sucks” is not “we’ve done worse and I can prove it”. There’s even a quip in there attacking Obama’s environmental views because at once point in his life, he drove over 80mph by his own admission.

The article is pointless drivel that goes all over the place and doesn’t accomplish anything. I know that the Detroit News tends to be a little more right leaning than left, however if you want to make a point about a presidential candidate, actually make a point.

Make it a good point.

And don’t make it a point about the Ford Grenada.

And if you do, at least write a decent article about it.

1. The value of the dollar
   and
2. If his temper would be an issue as president

Apparently the rest of the meeting was so boring that my temper question raised a few eyebrows over at places like MSNBC, FOX, CBS and was even a featured story on CNN. Google news even gave it it’s own section. City newspapers such as the LA Times and the New York Times also had their say.

The Libby Quaid of the Associated press picked it up as well, so it’s been popping upon all sorts of places from Yahoo! News to every other news palce you can think of. The blogosphere also started reacting, placed including the Pensito Review, Hot Air, and Weasel Zippers (although I’m sure there’s others).

I’m working right now on getting the full question(s) up on here so I can respond with my reasoning in a better fashion, but for now we’ll have to do with the CNN / WDIV video (which is better than the youtube one), which they don’t let you hotlink so you have to go HERE to view it.

Now, I don’t like the video at all. It completely cuts off the first part of my second question, initially adressing the issue, and hearing a response from him. However it starts with my response from what he said which was something along the lines of “I get angry because I have passion”. It makes me look like I opened my statement praising his passion, which I didn’t do. That was not my intent.

I do however, respect the fact that he is passionate about what he does. I feel if you’re going to be one of 2 people representing a state, you damn well better be passionate about it.

I also highly respect the fact that he is actually taking audience questions, which has monumental potential for catastrophe. But I think it’s something that every politician should do, and the audience should not discourage that. Which is why I asked the question I did in the manner that I asked it. He’s giving us the chance to talk to him one on one, no reason why we can’t do it like civilized people. (That, Trish at the Pensito Review is why I asked the question nicely. And for the record, no, I didn’t lose a bet).

Besides, I did a good job of seperating myself from the protesters who I hung out with before we all went over in a group to the meeting. I didn’t want to spoil my assimilation by attempting to make an ass out of McCain and instead make an ass out of myself (which I’m sure some will argue I did anyways).

There were tougher questions I could have thrown at him. About the war, the economy, how he always votes party line when things matter. I could have gotten into an argument with him about his response, as it wasn’t exactly what I was referring to. I don’t care that he gets angry about a bridge to nowhere. That’s not special, so do I. But I don’t get into it and scream “fuck you” to show how angry I am with other senators of the same party. That’s just rediculous, and he knew damn well what I was talking about and chose to ignore the basis of it and talk about how he’s angry with the status quo.

The more I sat there contemplating asking this question, the more I thought it would end like this. His straight talk is more of a straight and narrow line for what he wants to address, which I think he proved very well yesterday if you listen to his responses on a lot of these questions. But that’s neither here nor there.

It also identified me in the papers as a “concerned republican voter”, which I did say. Which was more of my way of identifying myself as someone who does not support Clinton or Obama, as with a question like that you can almost hear the crowd under their breath go “here’s more liberal hippie bullshit”, so I had to put that to rest quickly.

So in all, I felt the answer was unsatisfactory, and of course he played politics with it. If your essential response to “Will you temper be a problem” is “I’m an angry guy”, then you’ve raised more questions than you’ve answered.