It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything logical and sensible, so here goes…

While everyone goes on the Hybrid trip, paying astronomical prices for cars with no real fuel savings, some of us hang on to older cars from the 80’s which have real fuel savings without the need for all the extra garbage.

Cars like the Pontiac Sunbird/Chevrolet Cavalier with the 2.1 OHC engine, or even the Subaru 1600DL, still get 40+mpg on the interstate.

Yes, they really do.

My 1984 Sunbird, for instance, consistently ran at about 42mpg and the OHC made it a nice, quick car.  Meanwhile, the old Subaru consistently ran up to 48mpg.

With kick-ass gas mileage available with older cars, why bother with a hybrid?

The fact is, as far as Automobiles go, very little has happened since the 1980’s except to make vehicles more complex.

Despite the Government’s cries about efficiency, and even tax relief for high-mileage vehicles, gas mileage has done nothing but suffer.

Meanwhile, our dependence on foreign oil has increased exponentially.  Why should we continue to subsidize the economies of a chosen few in foreign nations when we could easily reduce our dependence while increasing our innovation and exports?

There have traditionally been two barriers: Political and Economic.

Our artificially inflated economy in 1990’s and our Government’s subsequent “lifestyle of excess” bear a substantial portion of the blame, as we simply made too many under-the-table deals with foreign countries.

As a case in point, China continued to have Favorite Nation status.  Mind you, this was absolutely necessary to make it a viable and reliable country for low-cost, high-quality manufacturing like its predecessors, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.  However, the strong increase in the Chinese economy came at the expense of other Asian economies.  Proof of this is shown in the economic collapse in 1997, and the subsequent recession which struck all other APaC nations in 2001.  Meanwhile, tax and import subsidies, cuts and rebates for domestic corporations purchasing Chinese products have continued, while China continues to produce the “same old, same old” products cheaper than we can manufacture them at home.

Economically, with our own post-9/11 “lean times,” many domestic corporations have adopted the attitude that research and development of new technologies is too risky, and thus continued to attempt to make innovations geared in familiar directions with familiar technology.  Using familiar technology (with cheaply acquired foreign components) has allowed for more modular designs, thus reducing the amount of labor, manufacturing and maintenance costs in our domestic auto factories.  For corporations, this spells profit even when their economic future is unclear.

In this video, Amory Lovins comes up with some great ideas.  It’s a long one, so grab a snack:

It’s really compelling stuff.

And, besides, something like this should even make the Moonbat segment of the global warming argument happy.  But then again, they’re usually really easy to get calm once you know which buttons to push.

I mean, dinner with E.T and a roll of Reynold’s Wrap can go a long way…

     When browsing to my favorite news provider, sometimes I realize a screenshot is worth a million words:

     I recalled a beer once.  But now I forget…

     So… 

     Should I order the cheeseburger, or the beer?

     On second thought, I’ll skip it. 

     Right now, I can’t afford to pay attention.

     Amusingly, WhoreChurch has awarded blogitude.com the Excellent Blog award due to the following reason:

Mark gets the award because he would beat me up if I didn’t give him the award.

     While the reasoning is patently untrue (I’d be more likely to beat him for saying I’m “not unavailable” *snicker*) the award — and thought — is appreciated.

     And thus, I pass the Award along to these five:

• Fracas, because she’s also twisted hilarious, and because she’s impressed me with her mad marketing skills she learnt from the Nelson Marketing agency over the last year;
• Diva’s Ranting Again (formerly Divalicious), because Diva would beat me up if I didn’t give her the award;
• The Silverbacks, because it’s hilarious, and pretty much the first place I click on the off days when I start surfing;
• Absolutely True, which is basically the Blog version of News of the Weird;
• and last, but certainly not least, Instapinch, for having the balls to live in DC and be a Patriot — at the same time, even!  That’s an impressive feat these days!  Plus, it’s fun as Hell watching him rip a Moonbat apart piece by piece and feed him back his words.  😉

     So, kudos, ya’ll.  Pass it on to five more.  😉

 UPDATE: 7:16PM EST

     Ok, I just noticed that it’s supposed to be TEN, not FIVE.  I am a dork.

     And so, in keeping it Local, I’ll add to the list the Usual Suspects:

• The Cutting Edge
• Reality Me!
• Domestic Psychology
• Oh … Really?
• The House of Flying Monkeys

     Enjoy!

     I’d like to propose a new Holiday.

     Let’s let February 20th be the new, annual “Quit Trying to Make Fill-In-Your-Name-Here Have a Bad Day Day.”  (e.g. “Quit Trying to Make Mark Steel Have a Bad Day Day”)

     That would be cool.  One day, where nobody’s trying to screw up legal processes, steal from, yell at, scream at, libel, slander, backstab, screw over or generally just act asshats to everyone else in the world.

     Sounds like a cool thing, doesn’t it?

     But man … on a day like that…

     Government, Comcast, and most banks would cease to function.

For a few years, my Messenger has been filled with so-called Customers who bother me whenever I get online.  They ask for help, often ask me to login to their servers remotely and fix things, and when it comes time to pay, I get the old, “When I make money, you make money!” thing.

It ires me to no end.

A few others have said, “Hey, we’ll pay you $x to do this website for us,” and then used the old, “We haven’t been paid for it yet,” trick.  Months pass, my questions get ignored, and then they have the balls to come and ask me to do more things for them.  And stupidly, I have.

Still others have said, “We’re hiring you at $x a week, and we expect at least y hours out of you.  Are you game?”
“Certainly!”
I get their billing information, they get their login and password to the billing system and go in and enter a credit card like they’re supposed to.  The scam usually works when their credit card won’t bill, and they ask me to switch them to PayPal billing, which I do.  They don’t bother to pay that one, so I send them an invoice through PayPal.  They don’t bother with that one, either, and meanwhile, they change their passwords on their servers. Scam are all over the Internet. Case in point are those websites that say they can predict your future or read cards for you from across countries. But we know better now, so here’s how to spot a fake psychic.

It’s really annoying, trying to do business with people whose faces you never see, or people who are too far away to get hold of and rip their arms off when they do something like that.

Tonight, one of the standard “When I make money, you make money” freeloaders got an eyefull:

Mark says:
Man, ya know, it’s really bugging me lately. I’m a consultant. It’s what I do for a living. And I just can’t just answer and fix servers for free all the time. I’m just not doing that anymore. It costs $xxx an hour, and I’ve given you something like 12 hours or more and you’ve always said, “When I make money, you make money!” Well, ya know, after a hundred times, it becomes bullshit.

Mark says:
Now fuck off.

Captain Asshat says:
hey!  but I’m not getting paid for this job!
have a nice life loser

Mark says:
Yeah, a loser who you keep asking to fix your servers for free.

Really, knowing that Captain Asshat has never paid me a dime for the work I’ve done — even when he’s said he would — how could he expect anything less?  And, yeah, I have been a loser in the fact that I’ve lost every bit of revenue he’s promised after I’ve stupidly prioritized him above customers who actually do pay their bills.
So maybe I’m a loser — he’s still a deadbeat.

And why should I listen to, “That’s poor customer service!” from an asshat who hasn’t even been a customer?  I mean, by definition, customers usually pay.

So, Captain Asshat, seriously…  As far as “Customer Service,” my skills are absolutely excellent — ask any of my customers who actually pay per agreement.

Now, it’s not that anyone has to pay me to be nice to people.  It’s just that… well… I’m friendly.  I’m extremely helpful.
As a matter of fact, I’ve been too nice.  Too helpful.  Too willing to let too many people take advantage of me.

As far as my business goes … That ends now.  😉

I’m more assertive when I’m working for someone else, and I’m not when I’m working for myself.   That’s a fact.
There’s a point where you have to be an asshole, and start weeding out the freeloaders.  That time past a long time ago, and I have a lot of catching up to do.  *evil grin*

And if you’re not paying me to do any of my “outstanding” work (your words, not mine), you’re gonna get what you pay for as far as “customer service.”  😉