THE PETERSON INVESTIGATION - PRICE SLASHED TO $1.99 USD

That's right, folks. Now you can get my novel "The Peterson Investigation" on Kindle E-Books for a mere $1.99 US.

Don't have a Kindle device? There's a free app you can upload to read the sample, and it can be used to buy and read the entire story.

I (egomaniac) still think it's worth $3.99; but there is a recession on after all.

GRATUITIES

Folks, I am just a dirt-poor cab driver. The reason I make my living this way is not because I cannot do anything better - and in fact if my books take off I may not have to do this much longer - but because I have a degree of freedom in this line of work unmatched by almost any other. For instance I can choose to sit on my fat ass and write stuff here if I wish, and today is one of those days I wish.

I just read something on AOL news about a waitress who received a credit card slip with no tip, with the notation that "you could stand to loose some weight" (pretty sure the a-hole meant "lose". But people these days evidently can't be bothered to apply what they know of spelling and grammar. However, I digress.)

Now, we cab drivers are not as dependent on tips as wait staff are. Waiters and waitresses are usually paid about two bucks an hour and absolutely rely on gratuities. I have waited tables before and have some real horrible cheapskate stories of my own.

Once, I had a young lady and her father in. The young lady had a sore throat and wanted scrambled eggs, and I patiently stood and listened as she explained in excruciating detail that she wanted her eggs soft, but without any raw, runny parts; as if she were the only person in the world who could know what having a raw sore throat was like. I actually had to take a seat because she wanted me to take extensive notes. (I am not making this up!) She could have just said she wanted the eggs very soft but fully cooked, but instead I had to listen to this whole fucking song-and-dance.

This took place in a Falls Church "Steak and Eggs" clone in Seven Corners where I was managing the joint. I was there between shifts and our waitresses and the assistant cook had not come in, so I was faced with these two PLUS four other tables. That's right, folks. Take the orders, cook the food (fry the fish, put the steaks on, flip the burgers, keep track of everything, collect the payment, EVERYTHING. )

So I made the eggs perfectly. I know I did because the young lady thanked me effusively.

But when I bused the table, what did I find?

Exact change for the tab, and a business card that said:

"While I appreciate the service you have rendered and the quality of my meal, I believe that the practice of "tipping" is unfair to both you and I. I and others believe that your employer should pay you a living wage. I would gladly pay a higher price for my meal, but I believe it to be deceptive for a restaurant owner to expect his customers to pay a price higher than what is listed on the menu. Please give this card to your employer and tell him that I and others like me expect the price of a service to be what is stated at the outset of the transaction."

WHAT A FUCKING DICK.

Let me be clear about this. I understand that some people HAVE to eat in a restaurant if they want a hot meal, and we had regulars in that place who came in nearly every morning for the "special" of one egg, one piece of toast, and a cup of coffee for $1.45 (this was 1980). These folks rarely if ever left anything extra; and if they did it was because they didn't want to wait for change of a dime. But really, if you're that bad off then God bless ya, and would you like me to warm up your coffee?

THESE ASSHOLES LEFT IN A 1979 CADILLAC ELDORADO.

It's the same thing in the taxicab biz. I get a regular going to work who has to take a taxi every day, I don't expect a tip. After all, I'm taking the passenger to someplace he probably would rather be anywhere else but. Charon doesn't get tips from people he is ferrying across the Styx to Hell, so why should these folks tip me?

As to every other situation, a "gratuity" should be determined by the level of service provided. I have gotten gigantic tips from people who loved the entertainment value of the ride as provided by me. (I have also been stiffed by people who did not like my sense of humor)

Gratuities, let me make clear, are always gratefully accepted. They are in no wise expected, and neither I nor any other person in the service industry has a right to expect them. I have many regular customers who tip not at all, but they are regular riders and truth be told they are pleasant enough that I would not charge them at all save for the fact that I am working to pay the rent. And after all, I'll take a cheapskate before a fare-evader or a robber any day.

Having said all this, I will say one thing further.

IF I EVER get a credit card slip returned to me with such a personal insult written on it, it will never be posted on the Net.

Because if I was that waitress I would have chased the mug down and shoved the paper down his throat. No kidding.

OCCUPIED DINGBATS

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING WITH AMUSEMENT AS THE IDLE YOUTH OF THE LEFT CONDUCT A SERIES OF EVENTS THEY ARE PLEASED TO CALL THE "OCCUPATION" OF VARIOUS CITIES AND AREAS. These crowds of kids with too much time on their hands, (and of course led and organized by the usual 1960s park and beach trash who raised hell back during the Nam) have engaged in ever-more ridiculous stunts since their multi-city circus began.

First the kids dressed up like money-eating zombies, makeup and all, and gave press interviews sounding like: Ugggh! Arrg! Must... eat... all...money! Yurggghh!"

How very original. How very mature.

Then, disappointed and angry that nobody gave them any candy (Halloween's 20 days away, idiots), they then tried to barge into the Air and Space Museum in order to scream curses at a Predator drone plane for killing bad guys.

Hey, fools. Obama is the guy who commands the plane. Scream at him. The plane can't hear you.

At any rate they were so insistent that the police had to be summoned, and pepper spray and batons and tasers had to be used to repel the demonstrators.

One guy was so pissed about the economy being so lousy and jobs being so scarce he quit his job to demonstrate against the lack of jobs. I hope that yokel receives the effusive thanks of the guy who got the job of replacing him. I also hope he finds some way of spreading that thanks on a cracker to feed himself. What an idiot, and these - demonstrations, are they? - are absolutely loaded with human cartoons like him.

A bunch of folks protested their lack of fundage by burning ones, tens, and twenties. "I'm broke, dammit!! See, I'll prove it, I just set fire to my last five bucks! Hey, by the way, could you get me some coffee? I just burned my last money."

What is really astounding is the amount of racism these mobs of boneheads demonstrate. I guess it's understandable, because Commie rat and former Obama czar Van Jones said that the Occupiers were "the TEA party" of the Left, and Lefties have always said the TEA party is racist.

That explains the jerks bitching over a PA system about the "Thieving rich Jews", etcetera. Huh. Socialism plus anti-Jewish rhetoric. Where have we heard that before?

And in Atlanta, an overwhelmingly white mob elected to forbid civil rights legend congressman John Lewis from addressing their rally. When someone tried to issue an apology to Lewis, he was shouted down by the mob.

And so it goes, all of these white leftists "demonstrating" what a complete and utter pack of scatterbrained, destructive, foul, demanding pains-in-the-ass they are. And here at the Alexandria Daily Poop, we thank you old hippies and you young fools for putting on this demonstration of what exactly it is that "president" Obama and Missy Nancy Pelosi support. They support YOU IDIOTS and have said so. You have exposed beautifully just what a gang of flaming assholes the "progressive" Statist lefties are.

The taking a crap on a police car was a nice touch. On behalf of the TEA party and the Republican nominees for all offices next November, we here at the Alexandria Daily Poop thank you.

Now go home. Mommy has your din-din and nice warm beddy-bye all ready for you.

You punk-ass maggots.

FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT PART II: DARK MATTER V. DARK POWER

WELL, AS IT TURNS OUT AS FAR AS THE HIGH FALUTIN' SCIENTISTS KNOW, THEY DON'T KNOW A DAMNED THING. This is borne out by the revelation that despite the existence of "dark matter" holding the universe together, there is also a "dark power" (which has nothing to do with Al Sharpton, by the way) which is pushing the universe to a rapidly accelerating expansion. What this "dark power" consists of they do not know, but they have observed that the universe is not only expanding but it is doing so at an accelerating rate.

AH HAH! THE FIRST PROOF THAT THE "POOP THEORY OF DARK MATTER" IS INDEED CORRECT!

So I herein posit the "Poop Theory of Dark Power", as follows:

All the energy given off since the beginning of the Universe has been slowing and transitioning back to mass, and a spherical shell of pure mass has been for eons building and accumulating just beyond the edge of the limits of human technology's ability to detect it. At some point, this mass became great enough to exert attraction on the mass contained in the stars and planets; and as this outer shell of mass grows it exerts an ever-greater force that compels the rest of the universe to move outward at an ever-increasing rate of speed.

I'd look into this further except that on the pittance I make driving a hack I cannot afford to launch a space telescope nor operate a particle collider. And when you guys win that Nobel and split it with me, I'm going to use the money to go fishing. Hell's bells people, I just stated what's going on. What, you want me to try to stop it?

Anyway, just remember that I hold the copyright to everything I publish here. When you find out I am right, give me the credit and fork over the money. Somewhere in some stream there is a fish that waits for me to dine upon it. Personally, there isn't anything I can do to stop any of this, and frankly I can't be bothered to wring my hands over things that probably won;t happen for a million years or more.

FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT (Mr. Einstein, meet Mr. Newton)

Recently a group of physics scientists reported they had detected evidence that a sub-atomic particle had traveled faster than the speed of light. The article I read contained a rather snorey and nebulous explanation of the phenomenon, but the upshot is that Einstein's Theory of Relativity states that it is impossible for an object to travel faster than the speed of light (E=MC2 or Energy equals (consists of) matter traveling at the speed of light squared is just one part of the theory.) SO if a particle can travel faster than the speed of light, Einstein's whole theory is reduced to bullshit.

Now, Yours Truly is not no physical science maven nohow no way. But I do know enough about that sort of thing to know that physicists have for decades argued about the existence of "dark matter". "Dark matter" is physical mass that is undetectable but that the presence of which is the only feasible explanation for the gravitational force which keeps the universe from flying apart willy-nilly.

As I said, Einstein posited that energy is just mass traveling at the speed of light, squared. Enter Issac Newton, who posited the idea of entropy, that everything is acted upon by outside forces that will eventually slow everything to a dead stop.

Now if entropy is true, then wherever energy is released it travels through an environment which offers some kind of resistance through the gravitational pull of mass. As Newton said, mass traveling at the speed of light squared will continue to do so until it is acted upon by an outside force. Cannot light itself be bent by gravity? And is it not correct that the amount of matter in the universe is constant?

Given this, the Poop Theory of Dark Matter is that sub-atomic particles observed traveling at more than the speed of light are bits of energy which have been slowed by entropy and are transitioning to pure mass again. And while the release of energy is concentrated at the point of release and is dramatic, the slowing of it is spread out over time and space and is so much less so as to be all but imperceptible to man-made instruments. Yet it exists, and "dark matter" consists of these transitional particles.

Now if any of you eggheads out there find what I have posited here to be true, then you damn well share that Nobel for Science with me, 50/50. And you will call it "The Poop Theory of Dark Matter" (boy, the jokes you could make about that). Fail to do so and I will sue your ass off.