All My Tweets Come True!

Yesterday, after receiving a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt and then tailgating another officer while still not wearing a seatbelt, I joked about setting a record for non-moving violations. Today, I received another ticket for not wearing a seatbelt...from the same officer who gave me a ticket yesterday. I just laughed.

Yesterday, the officer asked for my license without any hint of friendliness. Today, I smiled widely and and asked him "How are you doing today?" He just shook his head. I told him "I never wear it" (I don't believe it should be against the law, and I certainly don't believe that people should be pulled over only for not wearing seatbelts). He wrote that it in the comments on the ticket. Huh?

Today, he tried to walk off without being friendly again. I said, "See you tomorrow!" Then he actually smiled. Surprise, surprise...he gave me a tip. Tomorrow, he will be at the Valero on Memorial writing tickets for blocking the intersection instead of chasing people down Memorial for not wearing a seatbelt. I told him "Well, I never do that!" ;)

(Oh, and I lied about never wearing a seatbelt. My daughter usually makes me when she's in the car. For the record, that's three seatbelt tickets this year...I wonder if I can start a fund during open enrollment to help pay for these?...a small price to pay for libertarianism.)

I Love My Old, Foreign Car

OK, so my car's not that old, and it was made in America...but I have been driving it for almost six years, and it does say Hyundai on it. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty about both of those things, and sometimes I commend myself for changing my habits and standing up for a different way of life.

See, I grew up thinking that cars should be replaced every couple of years...mainly because my dad drives like a bat out of hell, and maybe a little bit because his dad owned a (foreign) car dealership, and also because my parents COULD replace their cars when they got tired of them. I still don't know how they did it on their salaries back then, but they did. When I started driving, I had that "gotta have a new car" mindset and a lot more funds. Just for fun, here's my car history:

• 1981 Ford Mustang (handed down from my father...I've got some good stories about this one!)
  


• 1989 Nissan Maxima (totalled this one in a ditch...wheeee!)



• 1993 Isuzu P-up (cheapest new thing I could find...hate it when I unexpectedly destroy things!)



• 1995 Isuzu P-up (this one had s-weet rims and custom pink pin-striping...should have never gotten rid of it!)



• 1998 Isuzu Rodeo (the biggest piece of crap on the road...I'm surprised I didn't die in this thing!)



• 2001 Nissan Frontier (upside down on the Rodeo...had to go cheap again, damn!)

and here we are now with the 2004 Hyundai Santa Fe! Sometimes I can't believe I paid off a car, and I'm not sick of it yet. I hope this car lasts five more years! I love this car! I need this car, because we have a house payment that goes up every year due to a crooked appraisal district and a daughter in private school due to my concern for her soul and her safety.

Somewhere inside us all, I think there is a place that can ignore the ads, and the media, and our friends, and anything else that tells us spending our hard-earned money is a good thing. A good thing is being happy with what you've got. A good thing is being able to provide EXACTLY what your family needs...nothing more, nothing less. A good thing is living the simple life. So my car is not new and it's not very pretty anymore...but it's a good thing.

Opinions are Overrated Anyway

I've been thinking a lot about bloggers' rights since a bunch of people with whom I am very close decided that not everyone is entitled to his/her opinions. I have never been very keen on using del.icio.us. You may ask how those two sentences warrant an inclusion in the same paragraph? Because...I'm testing the use of del.icio.us link rolls and decided to include my bloggersrights link roll here. Wonder and wander away.

Wait. What?

So it's cruel and unusual to lethally inject a man that shot his parents to death, but it's politically correct to shoot some birds because they shit on some football fans? Maybe I'm stretching things here with human life vs. animal life, but come on...

I don't normally impose my political mindset on others, so I apologize profusely for any offense my view of the death penalty may cause. Just thought it was interesting that these two stories would surface on the same day.

I'm Officially (in)Famous!

Jenny at Mama Drama, a big fan of Houston Roller Derby since we set her straight on whether or not roller derby was family-friendly, has featured Catazon in today's post as a plea to the producers of the Amazing Race to pick the roller derby twosome. Be nice and read the whole thing instead of scrolling down to the paragraph about me! Then come back and see what I have to say about the assumptions she has made about three of my possible future endeavors.

Although it is highly possible that I could be a Presidential candidate since I would run as a Libertarian and have considered becoming active in the local party, it would not be pretty once they start dragging the skeletons out of the closet. I'll skip that one to avoid embarrassing my family although it is nearly impossible to embarrass myself (as Jenny said, I did crawl on a pool table in lingerie).

Something as small and sprite as a leprechaun would surely give an Amazon a run for the money. If I was able to outsmart him and he started treating me like Darby O'Gill, I'd kick him to the curb in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, my legacy will be "The One that Broke Stuff", not "The One that Fixed Stuff." I accept the fact that I'm a bull in a china shop. It no longer frustrates me. So I can guarantee I won't be finding cures for anything, and I know not to even try.

Thank you, Jenny. Watch out, Hollywood!

Kinky Likes Roller Derby!

Everybody else is blogging about it, albeit for many different reasons, but I might as well give a shout-out to Kinky Friedman for giving a shout-out to roller derby. Just in case you don't want to read the article, here's the clip:

"I don't like basketball and I don't like women's basketball," he grumbles into his cellphone. "If it was roller derby, it would be different."

Kinky's referring to a promo he was asked to tape for the Houston Comets 10th anniversary. Now I must say that I totally respect the Comets, and I was even at their first three WNBA Championship games (good stuff!). In fact, I played against Sheryl Swoopes when I was in college. So I don't agree with him there. I do wonder what it would take to get him to do a promo for roller derby, though. Hell, forget the promo! Show up at a bout, such as the Stars Across Texas event that TXRG is hosting in September.