Welcome to Destructoville.

Welcome to my own personal place to break things and run rampant as much as I want. Please pardon the mess, step over the broken glass and watch those rusty pipes over there. I put them there on purpose. It's exactly the way I want it.

So, anyway, watch this space for more of the stupid things that make me ... me.

What? Why Destructoville? That's easy. When I was a kid I had this nasty (and viciously untrue) reputation for breaking things. So much so, in fact, that my delusional family had a nickname for me - Destructo. I wear it like a badge of honor, and I love it. So here we are in Destructoville. Welcome.

Now get off the lawn!

What's in a blog?

After my last rant on this site, I got an e-mail message from Kristi: "quit posting that crap on our family blog." That led invariably to discussions about what exactly this blog is for. I was under the impression that it was about who we are - personality, opinions and just goofy things that interest us. But Kristi reminded me that it was originally intended just to be a way for our family and friends, who are scattered literally across the world, to keep up with us, to see what's going on in our lives and to help keep in touch. She asked me to please start my own blog if I wanted to post geeky advertising stuff and opinion.

I thought about it quite a bit. At first I was dead set against it. This is partially my blog, after all. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Kristi was right. This should be an innocent place about family. It should be G-rated, and it should be about family. The beauty of the internet is that I can have my own little space where I can rant about everything - and nothing - until my heart is content. In my own little world I can post to geeky things like typography and new logos. And people can read it if they want - or not.

So, today I'm announcing the creation of my own little blog, Destructoville, at www.destructoville.jamespharaon.com. You won't get the posts in e-mail like you do with the Pharaon Family blog, but I will post a link here when I've posted something that might be interesting. And this space will be reserved solely for family matters.

That being said, I think I should take the time here to clear up what exactly the Pharaon Family blog isn't. It isn't meant to be a day-by-day recounting of our lives. In no way can we possibly post every picture we take on the blog or relay every story. There just isn't time. We'll continue to post the highlights as we have time. There are a lot of things that, while they are notable and cute, just don't make it to the blog, and we're sorry for that. Kristi has her hands absolutely full with a baby who thinks that sleep is for the weak (and trying to get any actual work done for her job, to say nothing of running the house.) I've got a day job that keeps me busy and I try to find time to be a good Dad in the evenings. And then there's the mountain of freelance work I try to get done late at night and in the morning.

Not whining here, just trying to illustrate that we've got actual lives going on. The blog is our way of letting the world into our lives when we can slow down long enough to share. There's so much that we could put on the blog if that's all we did.  I've got a great post in draft - for someday - about the Pharaon Boarding House.  And Soccer practice.  And  backyard camping.  And so on...

All that being said, we've discovered that we really like this whole blogging thing.  And we especially like the feedback we get from family and friends.  So keep it coming, and we will, too.

Morons, Idiots and Horrible Parents

For those of you who may not be aware, the Houston/Galveston area over the weekend suffered a direct hit from a strong category 3 hurricane - Ike. Beginning on Wednesday, people on Galveston Island were given MANDATORY evacuation orders, along with people from areas near the coast, including the Bolivar peninsula. They were told that this storm had a larger than normal storm surge and that if they stayed that they were on their own. Early reports were that 90% of the island had evacuated, but on Friday that was amended to 60%. A full 40% of the island decided to stay.

Morons.

Then came the pleading from the government. The residents that decided to stay in the MANDATORY evacuation area were told that they faced "certain death" if they stayed and that they would be on their own. And they stayed anyway. The news was full on Friday of people walking around on the seawall in Galveston taking pictures and watching the giant waves slam against the seawall.

Then, Friday afternoon the storm surge began and the wind started to pick up. The water went OVER the seawall, even before the hurricane had gotten there. And they stayed, even as police went door to door BEGGING people to evacuate.

There were reports that the reason some didn't evacuate was because they couldn't afford the gas or because they didn't have anyplace to go. So they rounded up a bunch of buses for people to board which would take them to a shelter. Some went, but most stayed.

Then the winds began to howl at hurricane force and the rains began. And the calls began. Morons called 911 begging and pleading to come be rescued from their homes because the water was rising or because their roof had already been blown off. And the police and the Coast Guard put themselves in danger to save as many of the booger-eating morons as they could before it was simply too dangerous. God bless them for trying, but I don't think they should have. Those who stayed were given LOTS of opportunities to go. They can't say they weren't warned, and they thumbed their noses at the same people who ended up saving their sorry butts. It may sound callous, but at some point there needs to be some accountability. And yes, even with loss of life.

How many resources were wasted because of such stupidity? Thank God there were no reports of the first responders suffering any casualties.

Why did they treat Ike like it was a joke? So they could have a hurricane party? Really? What part of MANDATORY was unclear, exactly?

Because "I survived Carla and Alicia and Rita and I'll be fine this time." First, Carla was in 1961, and you were a lot younger. Second, Carla hit further down the coast, sparing Galveston a direct hit. Alicia (1983) hit square on, so kudos to you for surviving it, but yet being too stupid to remember all the death and destruction that it caused. Rita (2005) hit the Sabine pass. Galveston was again spared and was on the good side of the storm.

So now we're treated to their sob stories and "heroic" tales all over the TV and newspapers, as if we're supposed to be proud of them and their remarkable feat of staying alive. And as the photos of the survivors start to trickle in, what amazes me and yet incenses me at the same time is how many parents decided to to keep their families either on Galveston or on Bolivar. I saw one guy on the news talking about how he stayed, but had to leave his home during the storm and hopped in his speed boat with his family, including young kids (wearing life jackets, luckily - thanks for that, father-of-the-year) and somehow managed to navigate to the Galvez hotel, where the emergency response teams were holed up.

And then I saw the following photos, which were taken from the Houston Chronicle's web site, showing "parents" with children as young as four months (!!!) who stayed and had be rescued and taken care of after the storm. Be stupid with your own life if you want to, but PLEASE don't force your kids to stay in harm's way because you think playing chicken with a hurricane is a game.

Just look at the kids. They're obviously exhausted and, I'm sure, traumatized. I'm not a big fan of CPS, but I think someone should seriously question the judgement of these "parents."

The caption on the Chronicle's slide show page said that this baby is only four months old. As a father of a six-month old, I find this kind of irresponsibility unconscionable.

Morons on parade. Actually, waiting to be spoon-fed.

The caption on this one read that this lady is assessing the damage to her fiance's car. So, let me get this straight... you had transportation, obviously fairly new and most probably in good working order, and yet still decided to stay? And now there will be an insurance claim that will contribute to yet higher insurance premiums. Thanks, moron.

Old enough to know better.

Again, old enough to know better. Wipe that smirk off your face, lady. Those guys who are helping you have families that you're keeping them from.

I'll end this little rant by saying that I hope that every last one of these morons gets a bill from the local authorities, itemized with such things as "officer's hazard pay, helicopter fuel, bottled water, etc." I also think that the next time they call a MANDATORY evacuation, they should wait until the traffic out of town dies out and then go around arresting all the fools who think they know better than anyone else. Charge them with a felony for disobeying a direct order from the governor, mayor and local officials. At least in custody, they won't need to be plucked from some rooftop somewhere.

My eyes! My eyes!!!!!

I have new thing to add to my list of top ten things I never wanted to see.... Bill Gates shaking his rump.

In case you haven't heard, Microsoft's new pitchman is Jerry Seinfeld. I'll wait a minute while the irony of that sinks in... done yet? no? ... okay. good.

Ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky out of Miami was hired to create a $300 million ad campaign to try to rejuvenate Microsoft's image and to complete with Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign. Their first task was to find a spokeman who just reeks of "fresh" and "hip" and cutting edge." Naturally, they picked Jerry Seinfeld (for kids in the audience, Jerry Seinfeld is a standup comedian who had a hit TV show that ended in 1998.) And the collective advertising and internet community said, "huh?" while Apple fanboys everywhere wet themselves with laughter since Seinfeld's apartment frequently had Macintosh computers laying around.

So a few weeks pass and we finally get to see the train wreck we were all waiting for:

I think parts of this ad are really, really funny. Jerry Seinfeld cruising around the mall eating a churro, for instance. The irony of Bill Gates shopping at a bargain basement shoe store wasn't lost on me - I just didn't think it was funny. But the best part of the whole spot was Bill Gates' lack of acting ability. And the fact that he's still using his 1977 mop-haired jail mugshot photo on his ID. That is what makes this spot funny.

Too bad Bill just retired and isn't the "face" of Microsoft anymore.

Where was this spot ten years ago? It would have been timely when Seinfeld's show had just gone off the air, while he was still on the top of everyone's collective mind. Bill Gates was still the face of Microsoft back then, which was in dire need of some good PR while it was knee-deep in its Internet Explorer anti-trust case.

There's no doubt that Microsoft needs a shot of positive PR. Following the Vista debacle, it's seen as a bloated, unwieldy giant that is out of touch with the mainstream. Choosing two aging icons of the '90s was a mistake. Someone like Jon Stewart would have been better. That would have also served as a subtle link - a little jab at Apple - because John Hodgman (PC) is a correspondent for the Jon Stewart show. Using PC's boss to pitch Microsoft would have been classic. That, and Stewart is still relevant and funny. Seinfeld ... not so much.

BTW- it should be noted that Bill Gates KNOWS that he's this wooden, dorky figure. He plays it well, and he's done a good job making fun of it in the past. Just check out his hilarious retirement video. He's definitely a better choice than Microsoft's current CEO, the always scary and never loveable Steve Ballmer. But Seinfeld? Seriously?

Microsoft continues to make a joke of their brand. Even though I'm an Apple guy, I still find it sad.

In a world ... without Don LaFontaine

Don LaFontaine, the man behind the most ubiquitous voice ever, died over the weekend at age 68. While this isn't exactly HUGE news, it is interesting to me because I used to work for a guy named Bill Moffett who had a lot of the same mannerisms and a voice very similar to LaFontaine's. Sometimes, while sitting around with the staff in his office or while cutting a radio spot he would launch into a spontaneous parody of LaFontaine that was always very funny. There's just something funny about hearing one voicever guy mimicking another voiceover guy perfectly.

Also, I got to thinking in the past couple of days... LaFontaine's voice was almost literally EVERYWHERE. Movie trailers, TV show promos, radio ads and on and on will never sound the same again. Let's hope they don't get some imitator that sounds kinda like him to pick up where he left off. Now that their go-to guy is gone, this could be a real chance for the industry to break some new ground. I hope they do.

In the presence of a Legend

There are very few bands or performers around today who I would classify as "legendary." I define "legendary" as one of the best of all time. U2, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson, George Strait ... and Tom Petty.

I've had a general liking of Tom Petty's music, although I didn't really know it was him, since grade school. I heard some of his stuff on the radio and thought it was okay. I liked the Traveling Wilburys songs that I heard. I thought his "Don't Come Around Here No More" video was really entertaining. But I wasn't a real fan. My first real "wow" moment regarding his music, when his name really was planted into my consciousness, was when I saw Silence of the Lambs. "American Girl" was featured for a breif moment in the film, and I really liked it. Then the "Into the Great Wide Open" CD cmae out. It was one of the first five CDs that I ever owned, and I like it as much today as I did back in high school when I used to play it over and over as I sat at my drawing table working on art projects late into the night. It's fair to say that "Into the Great Wide Open" and Rush's "Roll the Bones" became the soundtrack for my Junior year in high school.

I bought my first Tom Petty album in college. It was his Greatest Hits album. At the time, being a college student with little money, my policy for awhile was to ONLY buy Greatest Hits albums. And I played the heck out of it. There wasn't a song on it that I didn't like and only a couple that I didn't really, REALLY like. In 1994 I bought the Wildflowers album - breaking my non-greatest hits policy - and really liked it, too. And then a few years later in 1997 I saw a thing on VH1 about him (I think this was pre-Behind the Music). I determined that if I ever got the chance I would like to see him in concert, but still didn't really consider myself a fan. After all, what would Rush and U2 think?

Fast forward eleven years. Even though we now own several more Petty albums and his work on some soundtracks (Elizabethtown being our favorite), if you had asked me in April I still would have said that I liked his stuff, but that I wasn't really a fan. Then, driving back to Brenham from Houston late one night when Kristi's grandmother had been rushed to the hospital (it was about 3am and Kristi, Kayci and Noble were all sleeping), I was flipping through the radio stations trying to stay awake as I drove between Brenham and Bellville. I happened to land on some kind of news/entertainment show that was talking about new CDs that were coming out soon. They began talking about a CD coming out from a band called Mudcrutch and how good it was. "Cool name for a band," I thought.

Then they told the story about how Tom Petty's band before The Heartbreakers was called Mudcrutch and how on a whim he had decided to get the band back together after thirty years or so to play around (it wasn't hard to get them back together because most of the members of Mudcrutch ended up becoming Heartbreakers). They ended up cutting an album in his home studio and it was due to come out in the next few days. I was curious, but let it go at that.

A few days later I was at work listening to iTunes when a Petty song came on and it made me remember the radio show I had heard. So I did a search in the iTunes store for Mudcrutch and found it. I listened to all of the previews and really liked what I heard. It had a really cool sound, but it was a little more country and bluesy than his usual stuff. So I downloaded it and burned it to CD to listen to in the truck. I found Mudcrutch infectious. Every now and then a CD comes out that defines a certain season or period in my life. Mudcrutch defined spring 2008. I just couldn't stop listening to it. I highly recommend it.

I get iTunes new music updates every Tuesday in my e-mail. One day in July in my weekly e-mail there was a sidebar with artists who were on tour. Tom Petty was one of those, so I looked into it. He was playing at the Woodlands on August 29. I asked Kristi if she was interested and she said "no, check with Johnny." Johnny, my college roommate and best friend said he would love to go, so we got tickets. Then, the week of the show I mentioned to another friend, Misty, that I would be near her house on Friday for the show. She and her husband, Jason, went to the show as well and we all met up at on the lawn.

Johnny and I got to the Woodlands pavilion just as Steve Winwood was finishing up as the opening act. Neither Johnny nor wanted to give up out Man Card for seeing a Winwood show, so we went and had barbecue instead. Tom Petty came on shortly after and I must say it was one of the quickest concerts I've ever seen. By that, I mean that even though he played for a full two hours, it seemed like only thirty minutes. And he played all of his biggest hits. But he also played a couple of his lesser-known songs and some older stuff. And at one point he and the Heartbreakers launched into a ten-minute jam. I was a little disappointed that the newest song he played was "Honey Bee" from Wildflowers. He's released some really good stuff since then, including "Saving Grace" and "Jack" from his Highway Companion album in 2006. And he didn't do ANY Mudcrutch, which I was really hoping for. Instead of "Gloria," I wish he had done "Crystal River," which would make a really nice free-form jam. And "Scare Easy" is easily as powerful as "Won't Back Down."

I've seen Willie Nelson play live three times - twice from less than 30 feet away. As I was standing there watching the show it occurred to me that this show had a very similar feeling. There's something really COOL about being in the same space as a true legend. Even though I was about a hundred yards away from the stage, it still felt great to be there in the presence of greatness. Like his music or not, you have to admit that the man has produced a body of work that is as engrained in our culture and that he's a master at what he does. And that says nothing about the Heartbreakers. Now THAT is an under-appreciated band. Watching Mike Campbell play the guitar was just incredible. I was standing there watching a legend of rock do what he does best. Part of me wishes I had ponied up for the $150 tickets. But that's the part of me that also made me buy purple pants in Jr. High. I've found it's best not to listen to that part very often.

So that's what I did with my Friday night. I rolled back into Brenham about 12:30 and plopped into bed, dead tired but thoroughly satisfied that I had finally gotten to see a performer of whom I will finally admit to being a fan.

Gas prices!

[Note: sorry for some of the strong language in the e-mail version. I always write the first draft the way I intend it to come out and edit it later. I accidentally published the post before I redacted the curse words. Won't happen again.
-James]

Buckle up, because I'm fired up. This is going to be a bumpy post.

Did anyone else notice that gas jumped almost 20 cents over night?

Sure, there's TROPICAL STORM Gustav out in the gulf. Actually, strike that. It's not even IN the gulf yet. It's still over freaking Jamaica as I write this. They're not even projecting it to ENTER the gulf until Sunday afternoon which - let me do the math....um... carry the 2... - yeah, isn't even for TWO MORE DAYS! And then the National Hurricane Center isn't even expecting it to make landfall until Wednesday!

Why is it that we're told that drilling offshore in the gulf or in Alaska would be pointless because it would be ten years before we would see any of that oil and that it wouldn't affect prices now at all. Yet a storm that's not even in the gulf yet causes the price of gas to rise 20 cents over night? What kind of crap is that? Because it MIGHT disrupt offshore operation on some rigs, so the price goes up? How long does to take for oil drilled in the gulf to get to the refinery, be refined, then make its way to the gas station? I figure a couple of weeks, conservatively. I KNOW I'm over simplifying this. It's not like the oil they pump this week is the gas I'm using in two weeks. I realize they have HUGE storage facilities. I know that the process is much more complicated than I'm painting it here. I realize that any time there's a storm it shuts down all the tankers. My point is that shouldn't something actually HAPPEN before prices jump? This speculation business is out of control.

And then, once the storm passes, why then does it take MONTHS for the price to go back down, not the weeks that a logical supply chain should require? Prices should go back down to pre-hurricane levels (assuming, of course, that none of the pumping rigs were damaged, thereby reducing supply) once the rigs were staffed and pumping again.
[EDIT: Thanks for the education, Layne, on what they have to go through after they shut down a refinery. Interesting stuff. My larger point is that we should have more refining capacity so that a couple of refineries isn't so big a hit to the overall production.]

I was commuting between Brenham and Houston every day during the summer when Katrina and Rita hit the gulf coast. I watched gas prices rise from $2.00 a gallon to $2.80-ish (and over $3.00 in some places) when Katrina hit. Prices subsided to the $2.60 range before Rita hit and they went back up to Katrina levels. And they stayed there. Because they could. People continued to pay the high prices. Because prices have always gone down in the past, right? Why should we alter our driving habits for a short-term spike, right? Three years later, they're a dollar higher, and that's after an almost 50 cent slip since the height of the summer.

So I paid $2.55 this morning to fill up my truck. It cost $70. When I bought it three years ago it cost $40 to fill it. Earlier this summer it cost almost $90 when prices were hovering around $4.00 (for no good reason.) Anyone else notice that in the last month or so as gas prices slipped back a little that the economy started picking up? There's a link. We're finally at that tipping point where gas prices are affecting everyone's bottom lines. Frankly, I'm surprised that it took this long. And also, frankly, I'm embarrased that when prices dip down to freaking $3.45 a gallon that everyone rushes out and fills up because we've been conditioned to think that we're getting a good deal. Why is the American public acting like such a bunch of mind-numbed lemmings? We're told that there are more pressing issues. Crime... Iraq... The upcoming election... What's hot at the box office... What's Britney Spears doing today... So we accept high gas prices as inevitable and continue with our lives unchanged. We put up with - and accept - this stuff.

I don't fault the oil companies for making a profit. That's what they're in business for. And I hope to God that Obama isn't elected because his rhetoric about "windfall profit taxes" scares the heck out of me. Have we come so close to a Communist state that the government can talk about seizing private corporate profits ... and the public ACCEPTS it???? My friends, that's only one step away from the government stepping in and saying that you made too much last year and that your "excess profits" will be confiscated - in the form of taxes - to be redistributed to the less wealthy. That's the point where the government is deciding what its citizens are worth and what they earn. And that sounds a lot like the USSR, pal.

Of course, I come with a solution. It has four parts. First and foremost is for the government to allow more drilling by not tying the hands of the oil companies. Technology has made drilling much cleaner than in the past, which is the primary argument that environmentalists use when arguing against new drilling.

We also need more refining capacity. The US is still refining at the same capacity that it was in 1976, when the last oil refinery was completed. The population has increased 71% since then.

Third, stop the use of ethanol. It's sucking much-needed corn out of circulation in a year when droughts and floods have destroyed crops across the United States. That grain goes to feed livestock and to make things like corn syrup, which is in almost everything these days. The fact that so much corn is suddenly being used for fuel is a huge reason why grocery prices have risen so dramatically over the past year. It's also an inefficient fuel. It takes 26.1 lbs of corn to make a single gallon of ethanol. That's almost exactly the amount of corn a single person eats in a year. And there's still conflicting opinions on whether ethanol is even good for your car at all.

Fourth, continue to develop new and alternative energy sources. Anyone who says that wind power or solar power alone can give us all the power we need is living a pipe dream. From what I've read, nuclear energy is still the cleanest and most efficient fuel there is in any sizeable (read: usable to power large sections of the country) form. Develop new technologies that can be used twenty or thirty years down the road while we wean ourselves off of oil. It's a little scary that I actually agree with Paris Hilton's energy policy. But as I see it, the best approach is a two-pronged approach, not the either-or choices that McCain and Obama seem to hold.

For another great energy plan, read Congressman Michael McCaul's energy plan. I hope he runs for president in a few years.

So, now you know. That's what a 20 cent rise in gas prices does to me. I know, it's not pretty, but I'm tired of paying it and being quiet about it. I hope other people are as fed up with this continuous ridiculous madness as I am, especially when things can be done about it.