Week 2: The Death Car, Obama, & Oscar

Back in August, Christy and I bought a new car. A 2010 Toyota Corolla. This is just one of the many Toyota models that has been recalled for having a pedal that might possibly get stuck and cause sudden acceleration. I'm happy to report that we're all still alive after driving this car of death. We recently crossed the 5,000 mile mark, so we took the car in to get an oil change, and I asked them about a possible fix on our car. They didn't seem to have a clue what to do at this point. They informed me that we would "eventually" get a letter in the mail advising us to come in.

So...we're still driving our potential ticking time-bomb of a car. What else can we do? We don't have a second car yet. Honestly, though, I'm not overly concerned about it. It seems to be a very rare occurrence. Since my commute to work is mostly driving through farmland, I just tell myself that if my car won't stop, I'll just stick the car in neutral, and drive through the farms, trying to avoid cows and horses until I stop. Luckily, I'm not navigating the lethal freeways of Los Angeles anymore.

In other news, I've been encouraging Christy to take a second job working for the US census. She'd only have to do it part time, and she'd get some experience working a US "government" job. 10 years ago, the population of Manor was only around 1,300. This is the reason why Manor doesn't have a damn thing in this town. There is no major grocery store here. "Downtown" (if you can even call it that), consists of a couple of restaurants, a police station and courthouse, and a post office. That's it. I know, with all the development in the last few years, that the population here is much, much larger than 1,300. Hopefully, the census will show the actual number, and maybe we'll get some decent stores here.

I caught most of President Obama's "State of the Union" address last week. I found it rather funny when the Republicans didn't applaud when Obama stated he had cut taxes for 95% of working families. The Republicans are so freakin' stubborn in opposing everything that Obama wants to do, even though it seems to be the morally right thing to do. Why is the healthcare bill dying? The public option seems to be DOA, but they can't seem to even pass some basic healthcare reform, like allowing people with pre-existing conditions to get healthcare. I really, really hope that the two parties can get together and pass at least some sort of healthcare reform. For now, a little is better than nothing at all.

I also found it kind of sad that the only thing that John McCain found to complain about after the speech was the "gays in the military" policy. So what if gays want to join the military? Let them! Last I heard, the military was finding it hard to recruit people as it is. If gay people want to risk getting their heads blown off in Afghanistan, more power to them!

A lot of people have given up home on Obama after his first year in office. I haven't. Not yet, anyway. I knew he had a monumental mess to clean up once he came into office. When the national debt is in the billions (or trillions) of dollars, it takes some time.

Finally, I was a little more pleased this year with the Academy Award nominations. Last year, I hadn't seen any of the nominated movies, and this year I've seen 5 out of 10. "Avatar" seems to be a strong contender to win. Does it deserve it? Not really. "Avatar" is a good movie, but not Oscar-worthy. After I saw it, I told Christy that I liked "Titanic" better. If I were voting, I'd give the directing award to James Cameron, but vote for "Inglorious Basterds" as best picture.