Gas Sucks

Gas gas gas gas gas gasoline gas prices filling up gas gallon gasoline gas. There, enough keyword spamming, hopefully you found this blog using a search engine and I've successfully wasted some of your time. There is a panic ensuing in Atlanta right now, and I'm stuck in the middle of it. Somehow over night, the city has run out of gas (yeah that crappy toxic material we put in our pollution machines so we can get to work every day). Just out of nowhere, people are rushing the gas stations and blocking up all the roads and using up what little is left, all in the name of filling their tanks. This really sucks. I'm going home now. I have an empty tank in my truck, and no chance of filling it before tomorrow. Hopefully I don't run out on the way in tomorrow. You know what I really think of gasoline? I hate it.

I Just Saved a Bunch of Money on my Car Insurance by Switching to Geico

No, it's true, I really really did. K here's the scoop - and it's much better than ice cream: We have been using Met Life for our auto insurance for as long as we've been married, and Kim has been using it since well before that time, for about eight years to date. We have clean records, have only ever been in one accident for which we were not at fault (100% not at fault - hit from behind at a stop light), and the only claim that we ever made aside from the accident was because our vehicles suffered the wrath of Hurricane Charley in 2004, so the claim covered all of the scratches. Almost everyone in Southwest Florida made a claim, it's not like we were the only ones. Now, this may seem ignorant, but considering we have a legal obligation to have insurance, and that we pay a ridiculous portion of our salary to have it - doesn't it make a whole lot of sense that when something happens, our insurance company (read: the company we pay a ton of money to in the case that something happens) should help us foot the costs for reparation? Further, doesn't it make a lot of sense that in the cases where the something is not our fault, that it should not affect our payments? Well, not such is the case with Met Life. When we lived in Florida, we paid less than $1000 for good coverage, I think around $850 or so. They were a good company and took very, very good care of us, so I will not discount that. Then we moved to Georgia, and our rates suddenly shot up to $1755 for six months of coverage - $3510 a year to be insured - more than our car payment - $292.50 a month - stupid. When I asked a sales rep why the fees were so high, her response was that we had been in three accidents. Three accidents? But didn't you say just one?! Yes, yes I did. ONE accident, and TWO hurricane scratched cars - none our fault, but which caused our rates to more than double. So what did I do? I got an online quote from Geico, and called to verify it: less than $750 for six months. Talked it over with my wife, re-verified our Met Life rates to make sure there wasn't an error, and then within a half hour we were Geico customers. I will be canceling our Met Life policy tonight, with a few other words thrown in to make the phone call exciting. Sorry Met Life, we liked you while we had you, but for now, we just can't justify spending an extra $2100 or so a year just to be insured.

Hmm, What to Talk About Today?

Okay, let me think of a good topic to talk about. Granted, there are many, but I just don't have the energy nor the care to think one up. Sure, I could complain about gas prices, or taxes, or eminent domain (I promise if a person ever walked up to me and told me they supported eminent domain, I would punch them in the face - I don't care who it is, as long as I get that shot in; I'm not an angry person, I just hate stupidity). Also, be sure to check out this article to see what people with my view, and a lot of money, are doing. I don't know what to write about, to be honest. I just wanted to have an update on my blog today. Have fun reading about people having their homes taken away and demolished so that greedy developers could put up light poles - and yes, that really happened, right here in Atlanta.

What The Fudge? Gas More Expensive Than Diamonds?!

No, not really, but damn close. Last week when I filled up my truck, the price was $2.30/gal. which was really high compared to a few weeks before that. Today (yes, about 7 days later) I pulled up to the pump and could do nothing but sneer in disgust after looking at the pump, reading the gas price at $2.60/gal. A 30-cent increase in about a week, now that's just disgusting. It costs me about $3 more to fill up my tank this week than it did last week, and that's for a small gas tank. I have about the smallest gas tank you can get on a vehicle - about 11 gallons, and I stopped when the stupid pump hit $30, and it wasn't even full! I remember just 2 years ago being able to fill up my car for less than $20 ... in Florida ... where the gas prices are even higher than here in Georgia. All I can say is I hurt for those of you who opted for SUVs, I can only guess you're hitting about $80-100 per fill up. You know what, I'm sick of it, and sadly, there's nothing I can do except say this: Boo hiss to all you idiots in charge. Yes, that's right, idiots. GM, hurry up with your fuel-cell cars so I don't have to walk around angry anymore - this is just getting stupid. Anyway, this will probably be old by the time anyone reads it, but here is a graph: http://www.georgiagasprices.com/retail_price_chart.aspx Check out the pattern over the course of a year. Yeah, I know - ugh. Just ugh, and stupid, and I might be acting like a big baby and complaining, but I don't care.

Guess What I Found In My Bathroom!

No, no it's not what you're thinking. I found a scorpion in my bathroom. I have to say, that was exciting. I didn't know we had scorpions in Georgia, but now I have proof! (I even took pictures)