$4 gallons and it's been a long week of hysteria with no end in sight. The average price in Hawai'i yesterday was $4.01 a gallon. In Honolulu the average was $3.90, on the Big Island $4.05, and on Maui $4.32.
Everyone continues to stab like mad captains at dying whales, looking for any clear patch of vein in the putrid, withering bloodlines of America.
"Good ol' hard workin' 'Mericans" whine infantile nonsense about "what must be done", all two neocortical brain cells flare once then go out like a failed starter as they eat up hybrids and ethanol from Children of the Corn and every other airbrushed non-solution to Keeping America Ford's Good Ol Auto-Culture America. Soccer moms in Ford Explorers, suddenly unable to make that ten mile trip to little Billy's favorite ice cream place, put their hands together and babble incoherently for divine intervention. Then come home and shoot up some American Idol, wish upon Disney-McDonald's stars, vote in presidential elections.
Speculators toss oil futures crudely about like so much mortgage, sucking on the final bubbles of black blood burbling out of the dying leviathan before they burst. "Greedy execs", "the plummeting dollar", "hungry children", "rule of the market", "damn Arabs", "Alaskan drilling" "American values" Commentators wield discourse -- that one eternally cheap commodity -- slinging harpoons of blame to make McCarthy proud while barding praise to their sponsors and sacred cows. Anthems worthy of being hoisted above the Kremlin on towers carved out of ruby, circled by mile-long airships and sung to a twenty-one Kalashnikov salute.
So, in the wake of this gas madness and to do some little ounce of green/savings, my parents have gotten rid of their oil glutting six cylinder Isuzu Rodeo. My dad went on Craig's List and picked up a '92 Geo Tracker -- a fossil from a previous fossil fuel crisis -- for $500 which should get around thirty miles/gallon here. Only thing is, it didn't have an engine. So that was $300 for an 80,000 mile-er, and $30 for the crane rental, but still the Tracker's worth its weight in petrol.
It all went reasonably well considering my dad's never done an engine swap. It took us half a day to get the blown engine unplugged and jacked out, and the next day to get the new one down and in. Sticking the thing to the transmission of course was the real artistic part that took the most time but it slipped in without too many hiccups and with a few arcane mechanic tricks from a friend.
I was dubbed Boltmaster, taxonomizer of screws.
Dad and bro, preparing for the drop.
