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Driving Hoaxes Internet

Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame

Have you received this E-Mail ?

Cheating at Gas Pumps

This is a true story, so read it carefully. On April 24, 2008, I stopped at a Kangaroo BP gas station, located at 1325 Main Street, Cartersville, GA. My truck’s gas gage was on 1/4 of a tank. I use the mid-grade, which was priced at $3.71 per gallon. When my tank is at this point, it takes somewhere around 14 gallon’s to fill it up.

When the pump showed 14 gallons had been pumped I began to slow it down, then to my surprise it went to 15, then 16. I even looked under my truck to see if it was being spilled. It was not. Then it showed 17 gallons had been pumped. It stopped at almost 18 gallons. This was very strange to me, since my truck has only an 18 gallon tank. I went on my way a little confused, then on the evening news I heard a report that 1 out of 4 gas stations had calibrated their pumps to show more gas had been pumped than a person actually got.

Here is how to check a pump to see if you are getting the right amount:

Whichever grade you are using, put EXACTLY 10 GALLONS in your tank, then look at the dollar amount, if the dollar amount is not EXACTLY 10 times the price of the fuel you have chosen, then the pumps are rigged. In my case as I said the mid-grade was $3.71 9/10 per gallon, my dollar amount for 10 gallons should have been $37.19. If I had only check the pump. It doesn’t matter where you pump gas, please check the 10 gallon price. If you do find a station that is cheating, contact the Georgia Agriculture Department, and direct your comments to Tommy Irvin, Commissioner. In other states contact proper authorities.

Please don’t delete this until you have sent it to all people in your address book. We need to put a stop to this outrageous cheating of customers. The gas companies are making enough profits at honest rates.

In case you haven’t already figured it out this is another Internet hoax. The key phrases ‘This is a true story’, ‘so read it carefully’, and ‘Please don’t delete this until you have sent it to all people in your address book’ are the obvious tip-offs that while there may be a few facts and maybe even some useful tips sprinkled in to the E-Mail here and there for effect it is still an Internet hoax. It is not a true story. It never happened.

Read more about it.

Categories
Blogging Career Driving Food Health Internet Television

Bedtime Stories

Greetings my friends, and welcome aboard to the Friday night edition of ‘Bedtime Stories’.

Here’s a few ‘quick hits’ for you:

+ Friday May 09TH has become the ‘best day ever’ here on this blog, as we’ve shattered every record in the book for a single day in our history. We shattered the previous Friday record for unique hits by well over 40%, and we beat the previous ‘best day ever’ record by over 10% !

+ This comes hot on the heels following the best Thursday ever !

+ Yesterday’s edition of the ‘Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame’ has totally blown up on the Internet. It is expected to become the most-read blog entry ever in our history in just a few more days !

+ It’s Day 4 of my 4TH cold over the past 6 months, and I am now on the road to recovery. I can actually breathe out of both of my nostrils. My voice is still weak, but I expect it to come around to normal by Sunday morning.

+ I worked a long day today – over 9 hours without a lunch break. When I got off of work at 3 PM all I wanted to do was to eat food, so I hopped on Florida’s Turnpike and headed southbound because all of the food is in Florida City. I found it at the Cracker Barrel. While I was waiting for my food I passed the time away by texting a message to LL Phil J‘s cell phone. It was an ‘UnTwitter’ message. 😉

+ I watched 3 excellent episodes of “Survivor Micronesia” back-to-back-to-back this afternoon, and now I only have one more remaining (last night’s episode) before I am all caught up. I’ll be able to watch the three-hour season finale extravaganza LIVE this Sunday night starting at 8 PM on CBS-TVI’M SAYIN’ !

OK that’s ‘Bedtime Stories’ for you. Be sure to hang out on the blog tomorrow (Saturday) for more fun and surprises !

Have a safe, peaceful, and blessed evening with your loved ones.

Good Night Everyone !  Good Night Kelly !

Categories
Advertising Annoyances Blogging Driving Food God Home People Politics Television Travel

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

You know why you’re here:

1.  Some of the best television programming on-the-air is in the form of 30 and 60 second commercials. You know that it’s a great commercial when you pretty much stop what you’re doing whenever it comes on the tube – no matter how many times you’ve already seen it. I’m thinking about the AT&T GoPhone commercial right now that stars Meat Loaf and Tiffany. (NO – The’re not really married in real-life. That’s not really their son either.)

2.  The sight of a large gathering of people applauding President George W. Bush after a speech is a beautiful sight. The concept of everyone respecting The President Of The United States Of America (whoever it is), and treating him or her like you would want to be treated by any other human being is just plain humane. Unfortunately it’s a concept that millions of Americans just don’t understand.

3.  I think that I totally adore eating Kellogg’s Pop Tarts today just as much as I did as a kid back in the 1970s into the 1980s. I think that if you ask me about them again in another 30 years then the answer will probably be the same.

4.  On the other hand back in the 1970s I did not appreciate Chinese food. In fact I didn’t really enjoy eating it on a regular basis until the mid-1990s. Homestead has no shortage of family-owned Chinese restaurants. Everywhere you look – ‘There’s one !’

5.  Homestead also specializes in family-owned Mexican restaurants, and that’s a delicacy that’s even newer to my personal tastes than Chinese food. One day soon I’m going to have Lunch with this cat at a fine Mexican restaurant near my workplace.

6.  If there are just 3 motorists driving along a somewhat secluded portion of highway in Homestead then those 3 motorists would just have to be myself, the slow-poke directly in front of me that’s driving 33 MPH in a 40 MPH zone, and the tail-gater directly behind me that is so close that I can no longer see his or her vehicle anymore via my rear-view mirror. Throw in an extra-special 4TH vehicle that’s rapidly approaching all 3 of us with its high-beams on, and you’ve got a typical Tuesday morning on North Canal Drive in Homestead !

7.  Incidentally Miami-Dade County’s SW 328TH Street is known as ‘North Canal Drive’ for 7½-miles from Homestead Bayfront Park westward to the city limits of Florida City at SW 172ND Avenue. At that exact point SW 328TH Street is renamed ‘Lucy Street’, and it is the dividing line between Homestead (on the north) and Florida City (on the south). It has been that way since the 1940s. If you’re coming out of the Villages Of Homestead then you are making a turn onto ‘North Canal Drive’ – not ‘Lucy Street’.

8.  I had planned to go to Publix this afternoon after work to buy some much-needed groceries, but then I decided against it on the way home because I have way too many things to do – such as compiling and publishing these ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. It’s all about the sacrifices that I make for you – my loyal and faithful friend of this blog.

9.  I was referred to as ‘Pastor Chris’ a couple of times last week at the Exponential Conference in Orlando. I think it was because in some of the breakout sessions that I attended it was mostly all Pastors (and me). Unlike the Catholic Church Pastors tend to look and dress rather normal – just like you and me.

10.  My fingernails grow so fast. It seems like I just clipped them a few days ago, and now they need clipping again. That’s another 5 minutes out of my busy schedule !

Categories
Driving Hoaxes Internet Travel

Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame

BUYCOTT – BUY ALL of your gas from Citgo.

BOYCOTT – DON’T BUY ANY of your gas from Citgo.

Dueling E-Mails have been in constant circulation over the past couple of years urging you to buy all of your gasoline from Citgo – or urging you to do the complete opposite. There are many different E-Mail variations of both sides of this issue, and in all cases the myriad of reasons given are untrue, exaggerated, or just plain fabricated.

Here’s what we know is true. Citgo is owned by the national oil company of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez is the President of Venezuela. Lots of different oil companies buy their crude oil from Venezuela – including the gas station that you would probably spend your money at in lieu of Citgo – which incidentally has its world headquarters right here in the U.S. – in Houston Texas. Citgo employs some 4,000 people, and they supply some 14,000 independent retailers with gasoline. Boycotting any particular gas station or gas brand only serves to possibly put a tiny economic ding towards the local neighbourhood franchise owner and his or her personal staff of that gas station or gas brand – fellow Americans like you and me – only if you had previously frequented that station or brand on a regular basis. If you don’t want to support the oil companies – both domestic and international – then walk, run, or pedal a bicycle. If you want to buy less gas then drive more responsibly. The fact of the matter is that boycotts (of anything) are virtually irrelevant and produce little to no results – positive or negative. When was the last successful boycott of anything here in the U.S. in our history ?

Read how Snopes explains both sides of this issue.