RIP, Dublin Dr Pepper

As readers of my blog may remember, I mentioned in June that Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. had sued the bottlers of Dublin Dr Pepper.  Sadly, that case has ended with the result that I, at least, expected:  Dublin Dr Pepper is no more.

Per The Dallas Observer:

From here on out, per a settlement agreement just announced in the case filed by Plano-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group in June, the Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Company will now be known as Dublin Bottling Works Inc. And it will no longer manufacture Imperial Pure Cane Sugar Dr Pepper at its bottling plant.

It will continue to manufacture soft drinks with pure-cane sugar: Triple XXX Root Beer, NuGrape and SunCrest among others. But Dr Pepper Snapple Group has purchased from from the Kloster family all of its Dr Pepper-related assets, as well as the right to distribute Dr Pepper in the six-county territory (Comanche, Eastland, Erath, Hood, Hamilton and Bosque) previously served by Dublin Dr Pepper. Corporate says the product sold there and elsewhere will continue to be made with pure-cane sugar at the Temple bottling plant, and that "it will still be bottled and canned in distinct, nostalgic packaging." The only difference, says the announcement, is that "it will not reference Dublin on the label."

The good news, I suppose, is that per the information in the Observer article, Dr Pepper Snapple is going to continue to support Dublin's long history with the brand.  But still, for me and, I'm sure, many others, this is the end of an era.

At least for the moment, though, you can still buy Dublin Dr Pepper at Amazon, and for your convenience there happens to be a link right here.*



*I get paid a small commission for orders made through this link.

Unfairly forgotten song #10: Girls With Guns by Tommy Shaw

I'm not gonna lie:  what made me think of this was a recent comment by one Sarah Palin (as quoted by National Review via Conservatives4Palin) in which she stated, "I’m all in favor of girls with guns who know their purpose."

How could this child of the 80s not think of Tommy Shaw?

Tommy Shaw, as most of my readers probably don't know, was the lead guitarist for Styx through the late 70s and early 80s but left the group due to dissatisfaction with the direction in which other members wanted to take the band.  (Meh, go look it up on Wikipedia.)

Mr. Shaw's first solo album, which came to mind after I heard Governor Palin's statement above, was called "Girls With Guns", and its title track was Mr. Shaw's only Top 40 solo appearance, spending a grand total of three weeks on the Top 40 charts and peaking at #33 on November 17, 1984, before falling completely off the charts the following week.

It should be noted that, as I and others (such as "cassiemay10" over at SongMeanings.net) understand it, Mr. Shaw was writing not necessarily about girls carrying actual guns, but about strong, independent women.  (Women like Sarah Palin, perhaps.)

An interesting trait about the video for this track is that it is all one take; there are no cuts, which is quite different from the frenetic editing seen in most videos that I've ever watched.  See for yourself:


(All copyrights acknowledged.  Presented under Fair Use clause, and this was posted before SOPA, may it die in flames, ever passed.)

While I have never heard this song on the radio in the past 20 years apart from Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber's "Crap From the Past" on KFAI Minneapolis, you can purchase the MP3 right here (full disclosure:  I'll get about a penny if you purchase through this link):



*Note:  most information in "forgotten songs" entries comes from the always-reliable Wikipedia; as such, its veracity may be questionable.

I am resolved

I'm not usually one to make New Year's resolutions.  Really, the most I generally strive to reach when a year begins is to try to write the correct year on all my checks.  (Yes, I still write checks, which may very well make me a relic in 2012.)  I tried actually writing some resolutions down back when I was a child, but they were mostly just habits that I was trying to break.  Such resolutions were generally forgotten by the middle of the month.

Since, thanks to my typically timely posting, it is almost the middle of the month already, there doesn't seem to be any point in writing down any resolutions such as, for example, "I will stop eating junk food every night," particularly since, thanks to our current financial situation, we've already chosen to allocate our money in places other than supporting the junk food industry.

However, I think that a new year is a good time to, perhaps, make a few goals for oneself.  (Really, any time is good for self-improvement, but a new year, like a birthday, gives most people I know a special opportunity for thoughts of how they can live better than they did in the previous year.)  And so I put forward these goals, which are not resolutions and therefore cannot be broken within two days.

• I want to blog more.  (My track record over the fourth quarter of 2011 shows that improvement in this area probably shouldn't be too difficult.)
• I want to spend more time offline.  (This may not seem to jibe with the previous goal, but there is a lot of time that I have spent online in which I was not blogging.  Those who know the real me on Facebook can attest to this.)  My kids want to spend time with their father now, and I owe it to them to give them that time.
• I want to meet Sarah Palin.  (Sorry, I believe that entry belongs in my list of pipe dreams for 2012.)

But my main goal, which is going to receive enough exposition that I am not putting it behind a bullet point, is that I intend to read less comments this year.  Now, while all of my readers are well-reasoned, intelligent people (notwithstanding the amount of spam that gets filtered before reaching some of my older entries), there are some people who appear to do little more than spend their entire day, every day, posting comments on news articles.  And, unfortunately, many of these perpetual commenters are, shall we say, not the most well-informed of people.  And what appears to go hand-in-hand for some of these more ignorant commenters but which also can be found, sadly, even in the more savvy net presences, is a tendency toward rude, boorish behavior toward others with whom these serial commenters disagree.

As an example, simply view comments on any article on Hot Air discussing Sarah Palin.  (Did I mention that I want to meet her?  I did?  Good.  Moving on...)  Now, in this case, many of the people participating in the threads there are well-informed on the issues of the day.  But the rudeness of some people toward anyone who disagrees with them makes reading any comments on that site unpalatable at times.

While we're at it, I'll probably curtail my viewing of C-Span's "Washington Journal" for the same reason.  There are only so many times that I can hear ill-formulated opinions spewed from callers, and I think I'm nearing my limit, at least for the moment.  (This is also why I don't always listen to talk radio once the host starts taking calls, but at least then the host generally will challenge any incorrect statement from the callers, and so the annoyance factor is decreased there, at least a little.)

It's all part of trying to live by one of my favorite writings:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 

(Phillipians 4:8, from the New International Version, copyright 2011 Biblica, courtesy BibleGateway, used under Fair Use guidelines, at least while SOPA hasn't been passed.)

Too often, blog comments, loudmouthed callers, and others are anything but true, noble, etc.  For my spiritual health, I need to move my focus away from them, and put it back where it belongs.  Hopefully that will make for a much better 2012.

Can't we all just get along?

In the last two months since Sarah Palin announced she was not running for president, two factions have formed among those who were (are?) called Palinistas.  One group took the viewpoint that "Gov. Palin has made her decision, and we need to accept it," while the other group recalled a moment in which Sarah Palin, when asked what sort of metaphorical earthquake would be required to get her to change her mind, said, "It would have to be at least a 10.3..." and have sent in lots of postcards trying to convince her to enter the race as part of a group they have named "Sarah Palin's Earthquake".

Apparently, there have been tensions between these two factions.  (Due to family stuff, work stuff, a big vacation, and a general frustration with other tensions between supporters of the remaining candidates, I've stayed out of most of this, though I count myself as one of those respecting Gov. Palin's decision.  I don't have to like it, but I will respect it.)  As I understand it, Sarah Palin's Facebook page's moderators are removing some posts relating to the "respect her decision" viewpoint, while some of that viewpoint have harsh words for the "Earthquake" movement's apparent disregard for the Palin family.

Lisa Graas spoke to that yesterday:

My advice to the “Respect Sarah Palin’s Decision” people is that you try to be patient with the “Earthquake” people. They are acting out of pain, not hatred. They can’t see a way forward unless she runs for president, and these things take time to heal. It’s really important that we all try to give them their space and let them deal with this in their own way and in their own good time.

I have nothing but respect for Sarah Palin. I love her and respect her even though I have strongly disagreed with her. As I always say, there will always be a little Palinista in my little Passionist heart…but I am not Sarah Palin. I am Lisa Graas. Having said that, I can almost promise you that Sarah Palin is cognizant of, and able to manifest, the need for us all to love and respect each other while disagreeing strongly far more than I am able to manifest it. God bless her for what she brings to our public discourse in that regard.

It's a reminder that we need every so often.  It's okay to disagree and yet still respect those with whom we disagree.  Lisa's whole post is worth a read.

The Roots drag Jimmy Fallon's show down into the depths

I happened to turn on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night and was surprised to see Michele Bachmann as a guest.  And they seemed to be having a good, friendly conversation; it was enjoyable to watch.

That was before I learned about the message that Mr. Fallon's house band, The Roots (yes, I know they're famous for more than just being his house band, but that is what they are in regard to the show) sent with their intro music.  As most people who watch late night television know, guests occasionally are greeted by the band with some sort of fitting music.  Usually, it's pretty funny.

But it is certainly not funny to greet Michele Bachmann (or, really, anybody) with Fishbone's "Lyin' A** B****".  (No, the real title does not have any asterisks in it)



Tasteless.  Classless.  I would not condone this type of behavior toward anyone.

And this was not a random occurrence.  No, it was planned, per the tweet of Questlove of The Roots (and yes, this tweet was sent before Ms. Bachmann appeared):

Since this has come out (apparently most of the people I follow on Twitter aren't familiar with songs like this one, and neither am I), reaction has been swift on conservative fronts, at least.  For example, Dana Loesch wrote, "I can’t wait for the day when progressive males can evolve to a higher intellectual level and debate conservative women on facts, not on sex."  She then compared this incident (which, from what I have seen, has generated no reaction whatsoever from the MSM) with all the hand-wringing over the booing of Michelle Obama at a NASCAR event.  Which is worse, booing someone or calling someone a bitch, really?

And Glenn Beck, for all his over-the-top antics, hit it on the head in his calling for Mr. Fallon to fire his band.  Video courtesy The Right Scoop:



Do you think any other conservatives would want to be a "guest" on a show in which the band is going to be flat-out hateful?  I don't.

And what does Jimmy Fallon have to say about this:  not much.

I'm sorry, but I think there needs to be more said.  An apology during tonight's monologue would be a good start.  But only a start.  It's time for a message to be sent that this type of behavior is not going to be blindly accepted anymore.

Cap Metro does something helpful!

From the "credit where credit's due" department:

Capital Metro, Austin's occasionally decent but oftentimes maligned public transportation service (for examples of maligning, see here, here, and here) has finally done something that has caused me to give them a few kudos.

The backstory to my kudos starts here:  during a recent vacation (recounted, with some perspective, here), we used a local transportation service that had a feature that we really liked:  by texting a stop ID to a certain number, we could be texted back the next three stop times.

As the loss of the vehicle on that vacation has forced me back onto Cap Metro buses, I thought more than once about how having the ability to get stop times for my particular stop texted to me would be a great asset.  And then I thought that there was no way in the world that Cap Metro would do something, you know, that might actually help their riders.

Which shows what I know:  Cap Metro is doing exactly what I saw on my vacation.  From their blog:

Here’s how it works: every bus stop in the system has a unique ID number.  The bus stop at 11th and Guadalupe is #504, for example. With your phone and that ID number, you can:
Text: Text the bus stop ID number to Dadnab^TM at (512) 981-6221, and receive a reply text with the next scheduled bus arrival times for the buses that serve that stop.

Cap Metro's blog goes on to mention other ways of getting schedules.  I did notice that in connection with this new notification, the price of their schedule book ("Destinations") is going up to $3.  Whatever.

My main concern with this new texting method is this:  is it possible for the times texted back to the waiting rider to be adjusted based on the bus's real-time position?  It's all well and good, for example, to know that the #3 stops near my office at 5:29, but when the bus comes 20 minutes late, as it did on Friday afternoon, that information is not going to help me very much.  The transportation service that we used on our vacation definitely adjusted its upcoming stop times (I checked).

(Aside:  yes, it was indeed 20 minutes late, and I got no explanation when I called Cap Metro's "MetroLine".  There was actually another #3 that came by prior to the one that stopped, but the first bus had taken the route number down and wasn't picking anyone else up.  So why, at 20 minutes late, were we?  We were actually passed by the later #3 bus because we stopped to let everyone on.  That doesn't seem right, somehow.)

All in all, this is a good move for Capital Metro, but with some tweaking, it could perhaps be even better.

Update 11/22/11:  Apparently Destinations has been $3 for a while now, so nothing is changing there after all.

Sarah Palin on Congress's incredible double standards

Despite the hopes of many, Sarah Palin is not going away.  She has had a couple of prominent speeches since her announcement that she is not running for president, and in Friday's Wall Street Journal, she lets members of Congress (on both sides of the aisle) have it in a column entitled "How Congress Occupied Wall Street".  Very quickly, her tone is set as she refers to "this permanent political class in all its arrogant glory" in her discussion of a new book by Peter Schweizer (a foreign policy advisor for her PAC) called "Throw Them All Out".*  (I gotta say that I really like that title.)  She continues:

Mr. Schweizer answers the questions so many of us have asked. I addressed this in a speech in Iowa last Labor Day weekend. How do politicians who arrive in Washington, D.C. as men and women of modest means leave as millionaires? How do they miraculously accumulate wealth at a rate faster than the rest of us? How do politicians' stock portfolios outperform even the best hedge-fund managers'? I answered the question in that speech: Politicians derive power from the authority of their office and their access to our tax dollars, and they use that power to enrich and shield themselves.

"The money-making opportunities for politicians are myriad," she goes on, and as it turns out, a good portion of this is because the laws that apply to us little people don't apply to members of Congress, including laws regarding whistleblowing and FOIA requests.  It would seem to breed a fair amount of corruption.

And Governor Palin knows a thing or two about corruption:

I've been fighting this type of corruption and cronyism my entire political career. For years Alaskans suspected that our lawmakers and state administrators were in the pockets of the big oil companies to the detriment of ordinary Alaskans. We knew we were being taken for a ride, but it took FBI wiretaps to finally capture lawmakers in the act of selling their votes. In the wake of politicos being carted off to prison, my administration enacted reforms based on transparency and accountability to prevent this from happening again.

She goes on to argue for real solutions that "transcend political parties".  Hopefully this is a call that is heard by the American people.

Her entire column is worth a read.  Check it out.



* Disclaimer:  I get paid if you buy through this link.

2011 Online Red Kettle, and other ways to help out this holiday season

As I have taken some time today to remember what's truly important, I have remembered that this is a time of year when a lot of people think of others.  And so, I am repeating almost word for word what I said last year.

As has been my wont for the past three years, I am once again hosting an Online Red Kettle for the Salvation Army, for those who have either already finished their shopping or want to plan out their donations in advance.

So, if you would like to donate through my virtual kettle, you can do so by clicking the kettle below:

(Image courtesy The Salvation Army)

A couple of other ways to help out this holiday season (and, really, any time) are as follows:

If you are in the Austin area, the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas, where, according to what they have said, your monetary donation can go about five times as far as a food donation, as they can buy in bulk and save money.  They do a lot of good work, and we've supported them before.

Also, my online friend (though we disagree politically) Kim Doyle Wille supports (and I believe I have as well, by participating in one of those retweet-this-hashtag-and-we'll-donate-money schemes) Feeding America, which is a more national program than our local food bank, obviously.  (Feeding America appears to be matching donations until Thanksgiving.)

All of these options are well worth your support.  Regardless of your where your political and religious affiliations lie this holiday season, let's all help someone out who needs it.

What's important again? Part 2

No, my second long hiatus from blogging in a month and a half is not related (this time) to the announcement by one Sarah Palin that she is not running for President.  No, this hiatus was related to my taking the family on a cross-country trip.  And honestly, it was good to step away from the computer every so often and reevaluate things.  And did I ever get the opportunity to reevaluate.

See, while most of the trip was quite enjoyable (we visited a certain cartoon mouse and friends), one member of the family became very ill, and we feared for that member's survival. 

I refer, of course, to our vehicle. 

On the way out, the vehicle informed us that we were leaking oil.  And we were leaking it badly.  As we had already traveled several hundred miles and did not want to blow multiple days by waiting for the vehicle to sit in a shop in the hopes that they could fix the leak (as opposed to, say, visiting a cartoon mouse), we pressed on, keeping a sharp eye on the oil level.  The leak was not getting any worse, but it was bad enough that we were adding a quart every 100 miles. 

Once we reached Cartoon-Mouse-Land*, the vehicle was allowed to sit and not cause us any grief until such time as we left to return home.  And for two days of driving, we continued to add oil and hope that everything would go well and that we could get the vehicle into the shop once we were back in Austin.  We already were fearing that the cost of repairs would be more than we were willing to pay, given the age and mileage of the vehicle, and we were okay (though certainly not thrilled) with what we expected to come.

What we did not expect was for the vehicle to die on us, with (as we learned later) a non-functional fuel pump.  Between that and the oil leak, this vehicle is not worth the cost of repairing it to make it run again, and so we began the grieving process (which, as one might expect, is harder for the 5-year-old) to say goodbye to the vehicle.

So what does all this have to do with reevaluation?

I have not refrained from mentioning on this blog that I am a Christian.  Honestly, though, I would argue that American Christians don't always think about reliance on God.  With a gimpy vehicle, though, I thought about it quite a bit.  We prayed to make it back home safely, and at first, when the car broke down, I was a little frustrated...after all, we were stuck on the side of the road.  But, really, I now think that our prayer was granted.

See, what I did not mention was that the car broke down less than ten miles from our house.  We drove over 2700 miles on this trip, and the car could have died anywhere along that route.  (And anyone who has driven Interstate 10 knows that there are some long, desolate stretches.)  We were able to get a tow truck for the vehicle, as well as a taxi to get Mrs. Snowed back to pick up our family's other vehicle to come get us and the stuff, at a very late hour, and not only that, but both the tow truck and the cab arrived at the same time, so that we could coordinate everything perfectly.

Obviously, I'm not saying that everything went perfectly, but God was definitely watching over us on this trip.  I don't know that I'd say that something like this would happen like this again, as God is going to do what he chooses to do, but in this case he chose to get us home, and the way it all turned out was a great reminder for us to put our trust in him.  And that is much more important than any of the petty political things about which I normally blog.**

*In accordance with the wishes of Mrs Snowed, the chances of any pics of the family at Cartoon-Mouse-Land showing up on this blog are about the same as the chances of the Indianapolis Colts running the table and winning the Super Bowl this season.  If you want to see pics, you might want to talk to me in a location in which I don't use a nom de plume.


**Not that I'm gonna stop tweeting about the political stuff.  I mean, my snark has to have an outlet somewhere.

Austin Radio gets funnier

As I tweeted Thursday (retweeting the good folks at RadioInsight.com), Emmis has flipped local (Austin) translator K274AX to a comedy format, ending a ten-month simulcast of 93.3 KGSR (as originally reported, back when that simulcast started, here).  The new format, Comedy 102.7, is actually the HD3 feed of KGSR, so those lucky few who have HD radios won't be hearing anything new.

Over the last few days, I have checked out Austin's newest terrestrial radio station.  It is an affiliate of the 24/7 Comedy Radio Network and, as such, is one of the few HD subchannels that I have heard (that isn't an AM talk format simulcast on FM) that actually runs commercials.  From what I can tell, the commercials aren't too terribly obtrusive, though.  Mostly, the station/network seems to consist of short (3-5 minute) clips of different comedy shows (so don't expect to hear a full routine), with the comedian identified at the end of the clip (so that the listener spends the first minute or so of each clip trying to determine who the comedian in that clip is before, in my case most of the time, giving up).

Because this is a translator, its signal is not protected as full-power stations' signals are, and so those people living in south Austin (south of William Cannon, from what I can tell) will have the occasional morning (such as today was) in which Comedy 102.7 is overpowered by Jack FM out of San Antonio.  This isn't really anything new, which may be one reason why this translator has had more format flips than any other in town in the last five years (remember when it was oldies KITY?).

As for the comedy format itself, for the most part it kept me laughing for most of my commute to/from work (Comedy 102.7 may be a very good stress relief for those people stuck in traffic on I-35 or Mopac).  You will find the occasional hostility toward Christianity (it didn't take me long to find that), and I'm sure that eventually everyone listening will be offended by something.  You've been warned.  But, by and large, the only warning is that you might be laughing too hard to pay attention to the road.  It's worth a listen.

Check out Comedy 102.7's web page here (such as it presently is...current quote:  "We're for real, but this website's a joke!").
Check out Comedy 102.7's Facebook page here.
Check out Comedy 102.7's Twitter feed here.