Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Tag...Your Out

It's been on the news lately. I'm sure that you have already heard it. The game of Tag is out. That's right. The game of Tag. We are all familiar of what Tag is. Children running around, one person is "it". The child who is "it" must "tag" or touch another child and then that child becomes "it". Is there a real harm in it? Some schools seem to think so. Therefore they have banned it while other schools are following suit.

So what is really wrong with the game of Tag? Some schools are saying that their afraid that if a child gets hurt playing Tag that they'll be in for a lawsuit. Are you kidding me? Why don't they just ban everything all together. Ban anything that could get a child hurt. No more P.E., no more basketball, no more football, no more recess. Why don't you ban the kids from walking from class to class? You never know, they might just trip on their own shoelace and then you'll be in for a lawsuit because the teacher didn't tell the child to tie their shoe. How horrible would that be?

The fact is that a child can get hurt doing almost anything. Banning the game of Tag doesn't change the fact that they can still get hurt. People just need to start using a little bit more common sense. Just because you take away one little game doesn't mean that a child will not get hurt doing something else. The schools that have taken away the game of Tag should be smart enough to know that. Who ever thought of taking Tag away from schools should not be have the job that they have because it's obvious that they don't know what they are doing.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Why So Much

I wonder why in the world that now a days that it costs so much to buy a car. I was looking at some new cars the other day and wondering why they were so much. The price of cars has gone up dramatically over the past 10 years, but the quality has gone down. I guess that I just don't see the connection between the two. If the prices are going up then I want more features or something.

The thing that really gets me over all is the price. Not everyone can afford a new car. Many Americans strive everyday to make a living, yet cannot afford a decent car because of the price. I was looking at the Ford Focus the other day and even the plain Jane ones cost around 14 thousand dollars. Certainly they cannot cost that much to make. So I thought, What about used cars. I found that used cars cost almost as much as a new car. Even cars that are several years old. My question is why? What makes then so expensive. I went to my local Ford dealership, found the ugliest piece of junk that I could find and decided to see how much they wanted and here's what I found.

I found that on their used car lot they had a 2003 Ford F-150. You might think that being 2003 and a full size pickup it might cost a lot, but here are some specks that I figured would get this truck down to about $8000 dollars tops. This truck has 66,000+ miles on it, the paint was peeling in several locations, the bed was full of rust, it was manual transmission, no power locks, no power windows, vinyl floorboard, scratches all over the truck, damage to the bed such as dents, license plate had to be replace due to pulling a trailer and the trailer bashing the plate several times also meaning that there was stress on the engine, tires were almost bald, no tilt, V6, and a whole lot more. The ad in the local paper said that they wanted $12,900. What? $12,900. Are these people crazy? I'm not stupid and I know that this truck could not cost that much. So I did some digging.

I looked up the trucks value in the Kelly Blue Book and found that a truck like this is only worth about $11,745 in excellent shape. This truck was not in excellent shape, nor was it in great or even good shape. So I valued it at fair shape and came up with a value of about $8000. Just as I predicted. So I thought about talking to someone to see what type of deal that I could get.

When I went to the used car lot a woman named Cindy came to talk to me. I told her that I was interested in the truck and what type of deal that she would give me on it. I acted like I never saw the ad and asked her what the price of the truck was. After looking through some papers she looked up at me and said, "$13,900". What the...? That's $1000 more than the paper said. I asked her why so much and she proceeded to tell me that it was an STX. I asked her what exactly that meant and her response was, "Well, that means...um...it just means...um...well, it has cruise control." That's it? It just has cruise control. I said, "Cindy, that truck, according to the Kelly Blue Book, only has a value of $11,745 and that price is based on it being in excellent, top quality condition and we can both agree that it's seen better days." Once again she pushed the fact that it was an STX. I guess that I wasn't seeing the connection. Never the less, no matter what I told her, she would not budge on the price. Not one cent. She never even made the attempt to ask one person if they could lower the price. Never the less, I would say that Cindy is not a good car saleswoman.

But maybe it was just the Dealership. I went down to another my local Mitsubishi dealership, and to my amazement they had a 2002 Ford F-150 for sale. This truck was a year older but had 61,814 miles and was fully decked out. I'm talking tilt, cruise, power windows, power locks, remote key less entry, carpet, CD, and loads more. The only thing that it didn't have was automatic transmission. I called the next day and talked to Tim who said that it had a clean record, and a Carfax report would confirm that. What was the price? $10,500. Why so cheap? I looked up the value on the Kelly Blue Book for this car and it had a value of a little over $12,000. I talked to the Manager and he said that basically that they couldn't sell it because of the manual transmission. It had just about everything that you could ask for in a truck, just that the manual transmission was dent in the sale of the truck because people looking for that type of truck didn't want a manual. That's understandable and believable. I don't know too many people that want a fully loaded truck, or anything for that matter, without an automatic transmission. After bargaining with the manager, he said that he would give us me the truck for $9800. More than fair for an awesome looking truck.

In the end, I am still wondering why it costs so much for vehicles. I just happened to run into a great deal because of something that most people didn't want in a vehicle therefore making the truck sit there forever. I have no doubt that if it was an automatic transmission the cost would have been a lot higher. No matter what, I am still wondering why simple Americans cannot afford a good car for their families because of cost. We live in a day and age where only the rich can afford to have a good car and that it not right. Maybe someday we'll all live in a society where money in not that big of factor and we can all afford the nicer things in life.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Why Is Jackson Changing His Story

If there is anything that I don't understand is why people try to hide the truth when it comes to the police. If your in trouble with the law, just tell the truth.

When it comes to Stephen Jackson of the Indiana Pacers, I wonder what he is thinking when he lies to police. He already has changed two details about what really happened outside the strip club where he got battered and fired at least 5 shots from a gun. What are the changes? Jackson first claims that he was punched in the mouth, giving him the obvious fat lip, but then changes it saying that he got the fat lip from being hit by a car. Jackson also claimed that he shot his gun in self defense after being hit by the car but the prosecutor in the case, Carl Brizzi, says that Jackson got his gun from his car before being hit by the car and fired it.

My question to Jackson would be "Why"? Why would you lie? That's what gets people into trouble. Self defense is one thing and I have no problem with that, but when you change your story that's when the public and especially the police start questioning your motives. Stick with your story. Tell the truth in the first place and your story will never, never change. If there is one thing that I have learned about liars it's that they cannot keep track of their original story. They try, but over time their story starts to change and that's when people start to question you. No matter how hard they try they just can't remember their first version of the story. People that tell the truth have no problem remembering what happened because they don't have to make up details. Their story stays the same every time.

If I had one thing to tell Jackson is no matter what happens from here on out, tell the truth. Tell what really happened. Your save yourself a ton of trouble, more than your already in.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

My Mistake

With the NBA preseason underway, I have to give credit to Adam Morrison of the Charlotte Bobcats. While Adam is a rookie this year and only played in one game, he has already proven that he wants to be there. Scoring a whopping 19 points, Adam outscored every person on his team. This was the first game of the preseason and he's playing like it's the playoffs. If Adam keeps playing like this he'll be in the starting lineup for sure. Who cares if they lost the game by 19 points. Who really cares. Adam showed complete determination that he deserves to be there and that I respect.

I would like to also apologize to Adam for assuming that he wasn't all that he claimed to be. I remember making the remarks that he shouldn't be making claims that he would make people cry when he got to the NBA. If Adam keeps this up, he just may make people cry.