Taxing Pollution

This morning's Chicago Tribune reported that London mayor Ken Livingstone has levied a $50 a day charge on large suv vehicles that travel the streets of central London. People are up in arms. I think I like the idea, especially when I imagine all of those fools who drive Land Rovers scowling as they write those big checks out to the mayor. Sweet. Only because I think that Land Rovers are the biggest POS vehicle since the Yugo. Talk about resting on some 50-year old reputation as being THE vehicle to handle safaris. They probably haven't been relevant since the 60's. But people still buy them because they're shiek. Then realize they spend about 60 days a year in the repair shop. On second thought, maybe the tax checks they write out won't be so big, since they can't really drive them that often.

It will be interesting to see how this flies. I see problems with this "fee." You are going to tax SUVs and Minivans, but what if they are carrying 5 to 7 passengers? That seems to be a fairly responsible act. What, big transit buses don't pollute? What about taxis? What about the coal-fired electric plants that make other forms of mass-transit possible? How about ships? And Airplanes? Hello!! Air travel is mad dirty. I see concerns here that go beyond just taxing the privileged. I think everybody, to some extent, has to shoulder some of the responsibility, because daily, report after report is rolling in from scientists all over the world that this "climate change" (nice euphemism, by the way. Thanks, Dick Cheney) is getting crazy.

This place is about to blow up. So we better come up with some real solutions and get going on this.

Chean That Ship Up!

A group of northern European companies will invest and install fuel cells on board a supply ship in 2008, and pledge to convert entire fleets of ships to the cleaner technology. Iceland plans to turn their entire fleet over to fuel cells in the future. Although the initial costs are high, it will be worth it in the long run, due to more strict regulations and higher costs of conventional petroleum and the upcoming pollution taxes. See what happens when we start thinking together?
Via Good News Daily and Reuters

Ace and True Value follow-up

For the record, I don't hate on ALL Ace hardware stores. Just the one in my neighborhood, and not all the time. There is an Ace store in St. Paul that is really great, and there is another in Mishawaka, IN that I love, too. I don't really endorse one over the other. I just don't like the way-too-helpful staff. Leave me alone.

True Value 1, Ace 0

So, I have noticed that there is a trend toward the small, hometown hardware store. I love it, except that some places take this "friendly, helpful" moniker a little too far. There is an Ace hardware about 4 blocks from my house. It is located in this little village and has nice, bright awnings, radio flyer wagons and weber grills in the front windows, along with some American flags, beer coolers, and other charms of americana.

The problem is that as soon as I walk in the door, I know I will be intercepted by the "friendly, helpful" store clerk, who will ask me, "Find what you're looking for?" Well, hell no, because I just walked in the door!!! How the hell am I going to find what I'm looking for in 4 seconds? Seriously, even if I had the store layout committed to memory, I couldn't find what I'm looking for in under 10 seconds. But that's not all. This particular Ace seems to employ the "I know better than you" specialists, who somehow think that they have downloaded all of your mental contents and know everything about your project. One day I went in for a garden hose repair kit.

Here's a recent exchange:
"Hi"
"Hey there"
"Are you SURE you have a 1/2 inch garden hose, instead of a 5/8?"
"Yep"
"Because most garden hoses are 5/8, you know."
"Yep, I think this is the one."
"o.k."

What is that? What kind of approach is this?
"Are you SURE you have a 1/2 inch garden hose, instead of a 5/8?"

Couldn't he have just said something like, "Have everything you need?", or "Yeah, we get a lot of customers who get this 1/2" hose repair kit and then find out they need the more common 5/8." Or something other than the "I know better than you" attitude these guys have.

OOhh, I see Mr. Ace man - YOU know what type of garden hose I have at home, because you're all-knowing, right? You know more than I do about all of the fixtures I have in my home now, because you work at Ace hardware and you have been there for a few years, right? This allows you to know more than your customers about their stuff. O.K. then.

The problem is, of course, that I actually have a 1/2 inch garden hose, not a 5/8". But when I get home, I waste about 2 minutes of my time 2nd-guessing myself, wondering if I do, after all, have the 5/8" hose, and whether I should have grabbed that 5/8 repair kit, just to be safe. well, I got their Ace-brand hose repair kit. The 1/2" was the right size, but it leaked. Great.

After I have a few of the same encounters with these "helpful, friendly" know-it-alls, their schtick gets pretty old. Since they are intent on giving not-really-that-helpful, non-constructive, "I know more than you" attitude, I have dubbed them the Ace-holes.

But the hardware store is beautiful, it's small-town, it has old wood floors, it looks unchanged since the 50s, and it has all this charm. I feel like I should be going there to support the local hardware joint. I feel like a traitor if I go to a big-box retailer. I'm torn.

But there's another solution: I have a True Value store that's less than 4 blocks away, but not part of the village. It doesn't have nice awnings. It is a sheet-metal building, with no display windows, except for the one window on the side that has a hose reel and a bag of bird seed leaned up against it. It has dents, dings, and old glass auto-open doors from the early eighties, with film stuck on them from about a thousand old stickers. It is not charming, it does not evoke fond memories of the Americana of yore. It does not look like like your friendly, local hardware store. But I think I might like that.

But the best part is that when I go in there, I am not bothered by anyone. Nobody helps me. Unless I ask, and then I have to wait awhile, because some guy is in the back, taking his coffee break, or lunch break, or he's f-ing off, which is good. They don't even acknowledge that you're there. That's the America I know. And that's exactly what I want: a hardware store from the 70s. It is exactly like the hardware store I grew up with. A sheet-metal clad, unattractive, non-charming, dirty, fluorescent-lit, concrete-floored structure where there wasn't a clerk in sight and you got what you want, paid, and left.

Because, you see, I want my hardware store to be an extension of my garage or shop: I go in there and I know what I want, and I want to be left the hell alone to get it, or if I don't know what I want, to be given time to figure out what I want, before I throw up my arms and ask for help. I don't want an expert anywhere near me. I want to be left alone to discover my solution.

So I go there, get my true-value 1/2" inch hose repair kit (no questions asked), go home and install it. It works flawlessly.

True Value: 1
Ace-holes: 0

I have a theory...

So I have a theory, and I have been refraining forever to say or write anything about it because it's controversial, and I don't look forward to my house being firebombed, but I can't take it anymore. Here it is: every time I see a car with an anti-abortion sticker, especially a car with several anti-abortion stickers (which usually is the case -- what, I didn't get your viewpoint the first time?) you can bet that the person driving it is an old white guy. So far, my theory proves to be correct about 90% of the time.

I won't say anything else about the matter except this: Whether abortion is sometimes necessary or totally wrong, can we just please let this issue be decided by women? Can we keep all old white guys - and all men really - as far away from the decision-making process as possible? Really, guys don't know jack sh*t about creating another life form. Women know this best. They have been through it.

If you want some decisions made about fire, war, disasters, hot-rods, sausage-making, or blowing sh*t up, then consult guys. They are good at that sort of thing.

Capri Sun

You know, I have never been able to pierce that hole in those Capri Sun pouches without at least a little juice spilling out of the top. I have never had a "perfect piercing." Never.

The Phantom Job Offer

So I got a call from a placement agency a while ago, and my rep told me that a creative director I interviewed with in the area wanted to extend a job offer to me. I would be an art director for a local publisher, working on retail books and special projects. The job would not start for a few weeks, probably sometime in August. That phone call happened a month ago. For the past few weeks, I have called every week, to get updates on the status of my hire. I haven't received any new information, other than "I have a few calls in to her, and I'm waiting for her to get back with me." Hmmm. Not sure she sounds that interested in hiring me right away. My guess is that she's interviewing other candidates, probably from outside this placement agency, in the hopes to get someone qualified to do the job without having to pay the hefty agency talent fees that would come along with hiring me. In the meantime, I have 2 interviews lined up with ad agencies in the area, as well as a freelance gig with an architectural photographer to do remote photo shoots from time to time. It would be a good gig to fill in the gaps until something full-time comes along. I'd like to think that I don't have to interview anymore, and that I'll get a phone call from this placement agency, but I can't sit on my hands while the two parties play "whoever blinks first loses" game.