Me = 1, State of Florida = 0

When I learned that I would be moving out of Florida, I realized I could park anywhere--at least for a while. The last month in Tallahassee, I established quite a collection of parking tickets. I never parked in a handicapped zone, because that's not cool. But I did park on a Manatee's face once.

He had it comin'.

I'm out of Florida now, and it's a good thing-- one more and I would have been impounded. The bottom line is that I WIN.

Goodbye Tallahassee

Six years ago I jammed all of my stuff into a tiny Saturn and drove from Utah to Tallahassee. I lived alone (except for my Xbox) in a total dump. I thought I had it good.

I'm leaving tomorrow in a very different fashion. I have a wife and two kids, and a house full of furniture. Our truck will be filled with old diaper boxes we've packed full of stuff. I know what a duvet is. I know what throw-pillows are. Worse: I care what they look like. My stomach is bigger and my arms are smaller (but my lungs and liver are probably in better shape).

Sure, I got a degree while I was here, but the biggest change: I've been domesticated.

thank you, trial lawyers

My neighbor is a bit of a strange guy. But we both love our gardens, so we always have something to talk about. (Though I'm pretty sure he does some indoor gardening of dubious legality). He's normally awkwardly polite, but today he was extremely eager to talk to me. He rarely smiles because he is missing most of his upper teeth (no, really). Today he was all grins. Why?

Guy: I got some good news.

Me: What's up?

Guy: I got run over by a truck. Look at my leg.

Me: Eww. It looks like you got run over by a truck.

Guy: I'm fixin' to get paid!

Answer THIS

I would like to suggest that at this point in human history, we no longer need instructions on how to leave a phone message. But if you want to leave somebody a message, you have to wait through a lengthy description of what to do.

Do people REALLY need to be told what to do when they hear the tone?
The other thing is, don't give me the option of paging someone. No humans have been paged since 1993.
Your life slowly slips away as you are forced to listen to the same answering machine instructions day after day. Personally, I have better things to do—like writing a blog. About answering machines.

good for us, bad for you

My wife and I just sold our home. We received an offer the day it was on the market. We can't be sure, but in all likelihood it would still be on the market if it weren't for the tax credit.

But that doesn't make me a fan of the tax credit. Like everything the government does, there are unintended consequences. A good friend of mine got a job shortly after I did, and he didn't get a chance to put his home for sale in time for a buyer to take advantage of the tax credit. The housing market is now artificially depressed, because anyone who buys a house in the immediate aftermath of the tax credit would feel like a sucker. The market he faces is very different than the one we faced, and I don't like his chances.

One solution might be for the government to be permanently involved in providing incentives for housing. Except we tried that. It's called Fannie May and Freddie Mac, and they are partly responsible for the collapse.

Markets go up and down. The government needs to let the market bottom out so that we can see a real recovery.

I watched Avatar this weekend

It was so refreshing to see a Hollywood type portrait corporations in a negative light. Didn't see that coming! Cameron's shots at the US were similarly bold. What a maverick that guy is! Who else can reduce US history into a simplistic good vs. evil parable ? I mean, beside 5th graders. And adults who live in caves.

"We fight terror with terror!" Is it possible things are a little more complicated than that?

The thing that drives me crazy is that James Cameron actually thinks he making some kind of a gutsy statement. What a coward.

This country has been very good to Cameron--not to mention the rest of the world. It's despicable to me that he makes vast amounts of money--from Americans--by telling Americans how awful their country is. He's an ungrateful ass.

It's the equivalent of living in Mom's basement and mooching off of her, while constantly berating her.

I hate LA. Go LA!

The Los Angeles Lakers represent everything I hate: Sports dynasties, celebrities, ugly uniforms, and Phil Jackson-- who is possibly the worst human on earth. Throughout the playoffs, I cheered for every team that played them... until they faced Boston.

I wasn't planning on cheering for LA, but I just couldn't bring myself to cheer for a team from Boston. I realized I might actually hate Boston more than Los Angeles. The most prominent sports figure in LA is Kobe, and the most prominent one is Boston is Tom Brady. Neither is an especially upstanding citizen, but I detest Tom Brady with an unquenchable hatred. He's just so handsome.

Kobe is sort of ugly, and he also has an ENORMOUS chip on his shoulder despite being extremely successful. That's kind of an achievement. Kobe is angry; Brady is fussy.

Speaking of fussy, Rasheed Wallace is a 9-year old girl on the basketball court. His inner tweets: "Life is SO UNFAIR :(" and "These refs don't understand me >;("

The NBA should make it a foul to flop and cry before basketball becomes soccer.

Last thing is Ron Artest. Artest is not exactly a pillar-of-the-community guy, but he thanked his psychiatrist after winning. That redeems him from all previous misdeeds.