Place: Skipper's Seafood & Chowder House
Lunch: Fish & Chicken basket (with fries and cole slaw), chowder, Pepsi
Poor Skipper's is drowning. The chain filed bankruptcy and is effectively dissolving. The parent company has closed over a third of the existing units, has sold some of them to people who get to keep running them as "Skipper's" independently, left four franchise units alone, sold the grocery product line rights to somebody who plans to continue it, and is trying to sell the franchise rights, which I suppose means somebody could go on. But I doubt they will.
I was kind of surprised to see this one operating. So I took advantage.
A couple of years ago, I headed on a circle tour through the lower Michigan peninsula, Ohio, and Kentucky. When I left, gas was at a ridiculously high $2.39 per gallon. And I was angry.
Five days and one hurricane named Katrina later, gas was $3.09 per gallon.
People were furious.
Yet we've gone this whole summer with prices at Katrina levels, and nobody cares.
Last night, at a Conoco station in Nebraska, I saw premium unleaded priced at $3.79.
$3.79.
In rural Nebraska.
Oil companies have a history of taking advantage of any little excuse they can to hurt people. The excuse on this one is "a shipping source in Coffeyville Kansas is under water. Boo hoo hoo."
Shut up. You're laughing all the way to the bank.
It is time to break up the oil companies. Reverse every merger made in the past ten years.
Break up Chevron Texaco.
Break up Conoco Phillips.
Break up Exxon Mobil.
Break up BP-Amoco.
Break up Valero and all the crappy little companies they absorbed.
It's time to open up Alaska and give the rights to a non-oil company. Somebody with a track record of delivering low prices. It's time to let Wal-Mart find their own oil and produce their own gas.
(sigh)
Saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix today. Is it just me, or does Ginny Weasley bear a striking resemblance to Harry's mother?
