Humor Everywhere You Look

If nothing else, we're an entertaining species. Sometimes people anger me, sometimes it's their accomplishments or shortcomings that lead me to astonishment, other times it's people's idiocies and ignorance that leaves me speechless or with too much to say... One thing is always true though, people are always entertaining.

Take for instance this character in the "News" article below...

Choir director brings prayers for lower gas prices to SF
AP Associated Press: Sun Apr 27, 7:20 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO - A choir director who hopes prayer can bring down high gas prices is trying out his approach at some of the costliest pumps in the country.
Rocky Twyman of Washington, D.C., came to San Francisco over the weekend to stage a pray-in at a Chevron station. He is also calling on churchgoers to ask for God's intervention where he says politicians have failed.
Gas costing $4 a gallon or more has become common around the San Francisco Bay area.
The 59-year-old Twyman says people praying for cheaper fuel should also walk more and use car pools.
Twyman also works as a community organizer and public relations consultant. He has led campaigns to nominate Oprah Winfrey for the Nobel Peace Prize and to encourage African Americans to donate bone marrow.

I mean, come on. This is great. "Dear Lord. Would you please watch over my family, my friends and all those who are good on Earth and in Heaven above as we go about our daily lives trying to do what is right and live our lives as we feel you see fit. PS, could you please drop the price of gas down, just a notch? I mean, you're breaking my balls here, Lord. Jesus Christ! Cut us some slack here in America. Amen."

It's characters like this that bring entertainment value to topics that really shouldn't be funny or entertaining.

Hey, at least the guy is doing something. More than I can say. I don't even complain about the price of gas anymore. I just laugh every time I see an article about the price of crude rising to a new "All time high." Then every quarter, I see an article showing Exxon Mobil posting record earnings. It's great. I especially love how much they earn per second, $1,300. I don't even earn that much in a year.

Exxon shatters profit records
Oil giant makes corporate history by booking $11.7 billion in quarterly profit; earns $1,300 a second in 2007.
By David Ellis, CNNMoney.com staff writer
February 1 2008: 2:26 PM EST

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Exxon Mobil made history on Friday by reporting the highest quarterly and annual profits ever for a U.S. company, boosted in large part by soaring crude prices.
Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said fourth-quarter net income rose 14% to $11.66 billion, or $2.13 per share. The company earned $10.25 billion, or $1.76 per share, in the year-ago period.
The profit topped Exxon's previous quarterly record of $10.7 billion, set in the fourth quarter of 2005, which also was an all-time high for a U.S. corporation.
"Exxon can put out some amazing numbers and this is one of those cases," said Jason Gammel, senior analyst at Macquarie Securities in New York.
Exxon also set an annual profit record by earning $40.61 billion last year - or nearly $1,300 per second in 2007. That exceeded its previous record of $39.5 billion in 2006.
In the fourth quarter, the company said revenue rose 29.5% from a year ago to $116.64 billion.
Analysts were looking for the company to report quarterly profit of $10.36 billion on revenue of $114.9 billion, according to earnings tracker Thomson Financial.
Despite topping Wall Street's estimates, Exxon (XOM, Fortune 500) shares slipped in afternoon trading.
The company reported strong results in its worldwide exploration and production, or "upstream," business. Profit rose 32% to $8.2 billion during the quarter, offsetting some weakness earlier in the year.
Income in Exxon's refining, or "downstream," business rose 15.7% during the quarter to $2.27 billion.
Exxon attributed its impressive results to strong performance across its divisions, but a large part of the profit surge was underpinned by climbing oil prices.
Crude prices skyrocketed nearly 60% last year. The surge helped prices break through the $100 a barrel mark for the first time ever early last month. Since crossing that milestone, prices have eased to around $90 a barrel.
Natural gas prices also jumped last year, albeit marginally. But costs have also increased for the oil companies, which is why profits haven't risen as rapidly as crude prices.
Big oil companies that both pump oil and refine crude into gasoline have to spend more for crude but are unable to pass on all the extra cost to consumers, which eats in to gasoline profit margins.
The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline hit an all-time high of $3.23 in May, according to the motorist organization AAA. The high prices were blamed on strong demand and a series of accidents that shut down refineries in the U.S. But slack demand for gasoline in the latter half of last year kept gas prices from rising as dramatically as crude prices.
Exxon's record results, which coincide with smaller rival Chevron's (CVX, Fortune 500) profit jump, drew some fire from both government officials and consumer rights groups, who have argued previously that the the oil industry is deliberately restricting supply and profiting on the back of U.S. motorists.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. took a swipe at the two firms, calling on fellow lawmakers to break the country's dependence on foreign oil and rollback unnecessary tax incentives for oil companies.
Judy Dugan, research director of The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, urged Congress to initiate some oversight into unregulated energy trading markets, which have been accused of helping to drive up the price of oil.
"Exxon is happy to take advantage of these prices," said Dugan.
But finding oil has also become more costly. The oil boom has led to a surge in exploration and drilling activity, which has pushed up the price for skilled workers and equipment.
Furthermore, new supplies of oil are increasingly difficult to find and generally tend to be located in harder to reach - and hence more expensive - places. The new natural gas field discovered this week by Brazil's Petrobras lies three miles under the ocean.
ExxonMobil representatives also stressed the cyclical nature of the business and noted that growing global demand for energy will require companies to heavily invest in future growth. The company said it estimates that global demand will grow by 30 percent by 2030.
"The challenge for all of us in the industry is how to we meet that increased demand," said Henry Hubble, vice president of investor relations.
Exxon and Chevron aren't the only two oil giants to report impressive earnings recently. Conoco (COP, Fortune 500), the nation's third-largest oil company, trounced profit estimates by nearly 25% when it reported last week. And Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe's largest oil company, reported a 60% increase in profits Thursday.
-CNNMoney.com staff writer Steve Hargreaves contributed to this report

The best has to be how of late, ever time the most insignificant thing happens that even remotely involves anything having to do with oil or gasoline, people shit a brick and the price of crude jumps $5 a barrel. I can't wait till OPEC decides to start basing prices off the Euro instead of the Dollar. Think prices are high now? We'll probably be going to war with Afghanistan to prevent that within the next few years though, so instead of high fuel prices, we'll just have to keep shelling out half our salaries to fuel our military and all it's noble endeavors.

Long story short, I just felt like bitching for a little while. As for my plans, instead of doing something about it, I've decided that for the time being I'll just keep going on about my daily routine which involves off-roading in a fuel-guzzling rental 4x4. It's so much easier that way.

How about we all get together and pour out a little oil for our homies.