Send a Fax for $30

Get a bumper sticker.

Rumors of the "birther" movement's death appear to have been greatly exaggerated. The group has been demanding for months that President Obama produce a "valid" birth certificate to prove he's a natural-born citizen of the United States - and it's not giving up just yet. A Christian website called LivePrayer.com produced an infomercial that the United States Justice Foundation organization is set to air in seven Southern states.

John and I have been trying to come up with a money making scheme to separate Christian freaks from their Christ-dollars. We keep coming up empty.

God damnit.. that one is brilliant.

Is it too late for us to setup a bogus "Christian website" and begin selling anti-Obama paraphernalia? Bumper stickers.. key chains.. coffee mugs.. all sorts of high margin crap that would make a terrific Christofascist-day present?

We'll also have our magically supernatural "pastor" say any prayer for you that you type into a box (200 characters or less) on the web site for just one dollar!

Imagine what would happen if we hauled in a few million and then suddenly announced that we were raging Liberals, and part of the revenue would go to fund Democratic candidates for office?

Nah.. fuck the Democrats.. I want a 911 Turbo..

....

Speaking of the 911 Turbo. Porsche has done a refresh for the 2009 model year. Their web site has an awesome web special on the new car. I get chills. Never mind that the GTR is at least as quick for much less money, that car is a marvel.

Realistically, it's out of my range unless there's a huge deluge of home foreclosures on the horizon... which might just be the case.. lol

At my age (43), I doubt there are many people who have owned as few cars as I have. My dad bought me a '77 Mustang II in 1983. It was an awful car, but it got me around. I had it a long time. After that, I've had 2 MX5's, the second one I bought new. In 2003, I bought the G35 coupe new. It's been a great car, but it's really not giving me any kind of thrill anymore. That's 4 cars total that I've owned. So I think sometime in 2010, I'll get a new one.

This time, I think I'll get low mileage 2009 and save on the depreciation that somebody else paid for. There's an on-line retailer that specializes in late model cars of many types. They do a lot of early lease returns, and are primarily an internet reseller. They're also located in Dallas, so we can look at the cars and test drive and such. These days, there's a wealth of data on used car sales, making it easy to know the real value of the car. They don't seem full of shit. They just turn over a large volume of cars, and we've been to their lot to check out a couple of BMW's for John in the past. I think it's probably a good way to go about getting a "new" car.



The most likely car for me right now will be the new Nissan 370Z. New Z's are selling about $800 over invoice, so it's a pretty good discount from MSRP. A year old car with about 10k miles or so would be a good price point. I could use the savings to maybe upgrade with an after-market sound system, and maybe a few mods on the car. I like the new Z quite a lot, and it's performance is quite good. It's not a Turbo, but it is not far behind a Porsche Cayman, and it's new transmission actually blips the throttle for you on down-shifts. That's very cool.



Speaking of the Cayman, going that same buying route, I might be able to justify getting one. I really like the car, and it also got a refresh in 2009, with more power and a few other refinements. Many reviews I've read are perplexed at how Porsche has positioned the car in that it might just cannibalize the sales of the the Carrera, which is their meat and potatoes car. The performance is that good. Of course, by extension, that puts the Z as nearly comparable to a Carrera. The Z is the biggest bang for the buck that can be had in a sports car right now. Perhaps some could argue the GTR holds that crown right now, considering it's "super car" performance for $85k. A low mileage year old GTR will probably be in the high $60k range, but it certainly will hold it's value very well.

One problem, or perk depending on how you look at it, is that virtually everything on a Porsche is an "option". Want heated seats? $850. The list is endless, which is good if you want to configure the car exactly to your liking. Not so good when you look at the prices.