Friday Fives

1. How do you spend your lunch hour?

hmmm, generally I am eating a frozen dinner in a break room reading anti-Bush literature I print out from the web. I used to prefer Salon, because they lean a little left on the political side. However, our president is such a monumental failure that I can get good anti-Bush lit about anywhere these days.

2. What's the most extravagant thing you've ever done for a pet or animal?

Good question. Both of our last car decisions were specific to our pets. They had to be able to travel comfortably and safely. That being said, there is a delicious tale of irony to tell: So we bought the Subaru Outback so the dogs had plenty of room on roadtrips, right? So, after that, we bought a nice cargo bag for the top of the Outback. We did this so the dogs could have the maximum possible room inside the large cabin (the back seats go down) for the dogs. My genius dog, Max, decided to eat the cargo bag one day. So, now when we travel... the dogs have to smoosh inbetween all of our crap.

3. What could Barbara Walters make you cry about?

I can't see much she could make me cry about. There are two passions I have in life, music , family, and air hockey. Anything in that realm I am susceptible to, anything outside of that I can take or leave.

4. What is your weirdest, or most comical, dead pet story that you can bear sharing? Wow, thanks for bringing everything down a notch, Roy. When I was a kid growing up, We had a basset (or beagle, or something droopy like that) named Beau. He was old and codgy and one day when I came home from school I went to the family room to watch Scooby Doo, which I did diligently every day I can remember. Anyhow (and the irony only strikes me now about the dead dog and the dog show) one day I came home from school and Beau was sleeping, but there was white foam coming out of his nose. Yup, he was dead. So that was my lesson on dog mortality at an early age. But, the question was funny. So lemme tell you some funny stuff about my animals passing. I grew up with cats and dogs all my life. Whenever they passed into old age and had incontinence problems, my mom would take them to the vet and they would not return. She would say the vet took them to live at their ranch. I always knew something was funny about that. Now, as an adult, I understand very old animals should be euthanized for their own good. To this day though, my mother still maintains that Duke (our Weimeraner) and Coco (our calico cat) are still roaming at the vet's ranch. I grew up in the middle of metro Phoenix... there are no ranches. So here is to Coco, Duke, Beau, and the several gerbils and hampsters and rabbits that never made it out of that house alive. Most importantly, here is to Whiskey! 5. Have you recently rediscovered your appreciation of an album that you grew tired of long ago? yes, it happens a lot. Because I am obsessed with music, I can often get erratic in my listening. The best example would be Bob Dylan. I will listen to nothing but Bob for about a month (nothing after '65 ever, with the exception of '74s Blood on the Tracks). Then, I will go a year or so without cracking a single disc. George Harrison, the Beatles, and Metallica have similar trendy effects on me. Better question then might be, who is a band that is consistently a pleaser for me, and consistently in decent rotation? I can only think of one who is there time and time again, and never loses favor - Toad the Wet Sprocket via Roy click on comments and add your own Friday Five answers

Just say no

Just say no to corporate bailouts by tax payer dollars! This is an issue that has been festering in my head since United Airlines started begging for our money years ago, then filed for bankruptcy protection when they didn't get it. Here is why I am so callous about the issue: United Airlines sucks. Their service sucks, their prices are beyond laughable, and their management drove the company into the ground. Give me one reason to subsidize that kind of behavior! Reference Qwest here. Just about every union alive has struck from United since I moved here about 7 years ago. The stewardesses, the pilots, the desk help, even the machinists struck! I don't even know what a machinist does, but I am guessing it is pretty important to an airplane. How can we subsidize a business that had high cost alternative Ted as a brainchild? (it is about the third story down).

This is the second part about bailouts. Remember when things were really great about five years ago? Everything was great, the economy was roaring, we were at peace, crime was down... did a single one of these greedy companies ever say during these heydays "Hey, IRS... we are making a fortune over here. We really should be paying more taxes, because our profit is obscene!".

They did not, so I do not feel too obligated to help them now as a taxpayer. Lemme make an analogy: every Saturday Lenny comes over and mows your lawn. You pay him $20 every time. Every time Lenny spends the $20 on hookers. You have noticed that the lawnmower isn't being maintained very well, so your grass isn't cut properly. Also, though Lenny fights it, there are other mowers in the neighborhood offering the same service. You tell Lenny, maybe he should do some maintenance on the lawn mower with all the money he makes mowing lawns (He is the second biggest lawnmower guy in the nation) and he keeps spending his money on hookers and blow. So , after your lawn looks like crap for five weeks in a row, you go to another lawnmower person. Let's call him Frontier. He is nice, does a comparable job (if not better), and charges LESS.

After about a year of this new relationship, Lenny comes to you and says his mower is broke. You tell Lenny you don't really care. Lenny explains that YOU should buy him a new mower, and also cover the millions of dollars he owes to his bookies and dealers back in Chicago. You explain to him that if he invested the money he was making and worked a little harder to maintain a good relationship with you... this would not have happened. Lenny says "dude, if you don't buy me a new lawnmower, I'll go out of business". So, you say to Lenny "you know what, Lenny, we are doing just fine with Frontier... do what you need. Leave me out of it."

Here then is my advice to United: trim your overhead and offer reasonable and competitive flight prices. Everything else will come in time. To the rest of you, fly Frontier like the rest of us in Denver do.