There is this Philip Morris ad on television, Philip Morris being one of the big tobacco companies, although they also own Kraft and Miller Brewing (hey, looks like they also own all the domains where Philip and Morris are misspelled with double l's or single r's, quite clever).

In this ad, an older woman speaks compassionately about what Philip Morris is doing to be a responsible company. Meanwhile excerpts from the recent tobacco lawsuit agreement are shown on screen, in plain white on black. Philip Morris won't use cartoon characters or target ads to kids and several other things, mostly targeting kids.

It disgusts me a bit every time I see the commercial. It's like "look at all the things we're doing because we're being forced to do it, rather than doing it because it's the right thing to do -- aren't we a good and responsible company?" I don't have any real feelings against smoking. Adults should be free to commit suicide however they wish. But targeting kids is pretty low. And telling us what a great company they are when they're forced to be by a lawsuit is rather amazingly brazen on their part...

Later on this day I went to my car and discovered that I had a flat tire. Loss, disbelief, fear, crawl back into shell. I had to meet Dave at Sears to look at barbeques so I went back to my cubicle to call him, but he had already left. What to do, what to do. I could call AAA to get someone to put in my emergency spare. But I hate calling strangers and besides I should be able to do this myself.

Go back to the car and get the manual. Read up on changing the tire. Doesn't look to hard. But I don't want to look silly so I'll wait until later in the night to change the tire in peace. Emergency tire probably has a 50 mile range (my last car's spare had that range, this car's spare doesn't say anything). That's the distance from work to home so I don't want to drive home and chance losing the spare also. That means I should stay at work and go to a tire store in the morning to get the tire replaced.

Dave calls, wondering why I'm not at Sears. I break down: I have a flat tire, I don't know what to do, woe is me! He tells me not to panic and that he'll drive over to help me change the tire. I wait patiently, quietly relieved. Dave arrives and does most of the work. This time I watch closer, maybe next time I'll be able to do this myself.

So then we drive to Dave's place where I stay the night. Next morning we go to a Firestone dealer to get the tire fixed. Dave convinces me that fixing the tire is ok, although I think replacing it would be easier. It is quite cheap to fix a tire, but it'll take them a few hours as it's a low priority job. We dump my car back at the marina and I go with Dave to buy a barbeque for Shannon and Kimberly.

When we get back it's pretty late and we decide to just pick up the tire, we'll put it on ourselves. Back to the marina, change the tire. Steve walks by and comments a bit. Tire gets put back on and everything is fine again.

As a final note, although I appreciate Dave letting me sleep on his boat, maybe the Motel 6 next door would have been better. The only big problem with sleeping on a boat is that you're really close to the water. Didn't particularly like the salty smell of the sea as I lay there trying to go to sleep. There's just something about the smell that makes my stomach turn a bit.