How the times have changed

I have never been one to pay much attention to commercials but here lately I have started to take note of them.
Do you remember when we were kids and there was that commercial where the Indian (they were Indians back then, not "Native Americans") sitting on that horse and he was crying. At the time I just thought he was a big wuss or something, I didn't realize it was about littering or the "Give a hoot, don't pollute" commercials? And there were of course the Ginsu knives commercial where the guy would cut the can and then the tomato or the "Ancient Chinese Secret" calgon commercials.
Those were normal commercials, but the other day I was watching TV and this Cialis commercial came on. Man that's one disturbing commercial. Look kids, gramps got a boner again! And it may last for over four hours! Remember when you didn't want to sit on grandpas lap because his breath smelled funny, well this puts a whole new twist on it doesn't it? How about kids who don't want to sit on grandpa's lap for fear of being violated and the years and years of therapy that goes along with it. Well Thanksgiving is just going to be weird now isn't it. Going to be one hell of a family reunion.
Another one I saw was for this KY jelly that got hot when you use it. Now I am sure that the times have changed a bit but I remember what most guys wanted to use KY jelly for. And unless girls have changed A LOT, I don't remember any of them wanting that area to burn. Nothing like trying to explain why you have chemical burns to your proctologist. Who really thought this was a good idea? Must be the same guys who play the rodeo game where you call the girl you are with by either her sister or best friends name and see if you can stay on for 8 seconds. Because I got a good feeling about the time this product heats up you are going to get some movement that would closely resemble a seizure.
Ladies, here is a question for you, what is it about douche that makes you want to skip through a field of daisies? If your stuff is so bad that when it is clean you are giddy, you might want to clean more often, just an idea.
And is there some sort of wart outbreak or something? I have seen this commercial about 50 dozen times. I am glad that there is some way of freezing them off and all, but is it an epidemic or something? I just picture there is this colony of wart people somewhere.
Now radio commercials are no different. Ever hear the Trojan commercials? Right when the couple is about to get down to business a guy on a horse shows up and they don't freak out?! If that ever happened to me, I would be gone. Who is this couple that is ok with Dudley Do Right and his horse being there while you are about to let the good times roll?
Guess I need to watch the commercials more and see what I am missing.

"Committed to Excellence"

Have you ever noticed some of the quotes at the bottom of some e-mails and wonder what they were thinking when they put that on there? Not talking about stuff like "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" - Ben Franklin, that's just a cool quote. I am talking about when people put motivational or professional quotes at the bottom of their signature. Things like "Above and Beyond" or "Committed to Excellence" or "Your satisfaction is my priority". Well when in the fuck did my satisfaction become you sitting on your ass playing solitaire? Because that is pretty much all you do. I know, I have seen it. It would be different if it was a slow period or just happened every once and a while, but when it's habitual you really might want to consider removing your quote showing how hard of a worker you are.
Why don't people just put a signature that reflects them accurately. Maybe, they can't think of some, so I will help them out. Below are some of my examples of signature quotes that popped into my head when I have read the actual quotes from e-mails that I have received.
"Just here because it pays"
"If I was any lazier people would think I was in a coma"
"Who to call when "good enough" is still to much to ask for"
"The dumbest thing to ever walk to face of the earth"
"A Darwin Award in pants"
"Stupid is as I do"
"....what?"
"I sent an e-mail... yeah!!"
"What is my job again?"
"Customer Service, not my damn job!"
"Don't expect anything from me if it is even close to 5:00"
"I only work on days that don't end in y"
"You mean I can do more that check my hotmail with this machine?!?!?! COOL!"
"Equal opportunity applies to idiots too!"
"Still can't find the "any" key"
"I know a few buzz words and I am dying to say them!"
"Paying that girl to build my resume was so worth it"
"I work harder at getting out of work that most people do actually working"
"Not here to learn my job, why don't you do it for me"
"Low cut tops = don't have to do a damn thing"
"My motto is come in late, take a long lunch and leave early"
"This job is seriously getting in the way of my social life"
So if any of these examples seem to "Fit the Bill", please feel free to use them. You know, it simply amazes me to see people who hype themselves up when they are one step away from worthless. I am by no means saying that I am the be all, end all but I have actually had to work with some of these people and they just amaze me. These are the same people who have their work e-mail forward to their PDA (that they went out and bought on their own, not work related) for absolutely no reason. Usually listing out their work phone number, pager number, cell phone number, blackberry, home number, cell phone e-mail, personal e-mail, their mothers home address, next of kin, longitude and latitude coordinates of their house, neighbors phone number and so on in their signature as well, for absolutely no reason. I swear they must do it to impress their friends or something because there is no way in 500 hells that anyone has a need to get a hold of them when they are not at their desk. Same people who have business cards printed but never work with anyone who they would give them too. Also the same people who have to have something to say in each and every meeting, which usually has nothing to do with the topic, their job or even what the company does.
Is there some kind of government regulation that says every company has to hire a set number of morons?

Starbucks to English translation please!

You know, there is no way that I could ever work at Starbucks. It's not because of any moral/political feelings or because I am too cool for one of those stylish green aprons. It is because I don't know what in the hell they are saying. I need a Starbucks to English translation guide. When did coffee, $4 coffee at that, become so cool that it needed its own language.
For example this morning I went to get some coffee on the way to work and I read the menu and ordered what I wanted. But while I was waiting for my coffee I hear all of these other "things" being called out that I could not tell you what they were. If I was the smo behind the counter and someone came up to me and ordered a double tall, half fat, no whip, red eye, triple pour, with a double shot, decaf soy latte they would get a kick in the nuts. Seriously, what is that? I mean I thought a "Venti Mocha" was cool.
I guess when I ordered my coffee some of the "regulars" got a chuckle out of the light weight coffee drinker. What is all that other crap they are ordering. I feel like they are talking about me in a foreign language or something. While were at it, how is it I have never had two venti mochas that ever tasted the same. Well, other than the one I got today and one I got a couple of weeks ago. Those both tasted like hot water that I washed my gym socks in. But other than that, I have never had two come out the same. Some have whipped cream, some are so strong I could run my car off of them and everything in between.
What am I missing?
And don't the people who patronize this place have homes? Not talking about the small group of people who stopping in with some friends and are chit-chatting while they are enjoying their joe. I am talking about these people who set up camp like it is Woodstock at the local Starbucks. I have seen people with laptops and headsets sitting across from each other playing some weird games, I guess talking is SO last year. And then there are the merry band of misunderstood, dying to get noticed, loners and their god-aweful guitars. They want to be a loaner so bad that they group together and sit outside so that even if your not going in you still know they are there.
Ok, rant over.

Adventures in vacationing

Since I have been neglecting this blog lately and have had a slight increase in interest in it I have decided to update it. Since I have nothing new to gripe about, well I am sure I could find something if I thought about it, I am going to recap a vacation the wife and I took a couple of years back. This was my first and so far only time to any of the Disney parks. After reading this I am sure you will think to yourself “I am never going on vacation with them!” but you really should, because we have a ton of fun. I apologize in advance since this is a little long, but there was oh so much happening around us.

The day the asylum forgot to lock the doors

A few years ago before I had children the wife and I decided to go to sunny Orlando for a vacation since I had never been to any of the Disney parks before and since Hilton called us up and offered one of those come stay with us for four days for $99 and we will only make you suffer through a half day of trying to sell you a timeshare deals. I knew what was coming but I can deal with that and I am really good at saying “No thanks, I am really not interested in buying at this time” so the timeshare deal was not a big deal at all. So after some research we set up the trip. Since the wife was working in one part of town and I in another we decided to just meet at the airport after work the night we were to fly out. Since we were going to meet there we decided that we would just have a bite to eat in the airport. Of course when we got to our terminal there was nothing that took credit/debit cards but some sick French food place that had nothing we were really interested in before going on a flight. And I have never been known to carry cash. So we ask one of the people working at one of the restaurants if they knew if there was an ATM in the area. They told us where one was and we were off to get some cash. I can see the sign in the distance and it is an ATM for my bank. Sweet! No ATM fees. Not only where there no ATM fees for me, there were no ATM fees for anyone because, as fate would have it, the ATM was out of order. Damn! Oh well, it’s not a very long flight and they usually have some kind of snack on the plane and when we land we will get a bite to eat either at the airport or one of the restaurants in the area. So, we head back to our gate and that’s when I noticed a plane at the end of the jet way. Cool, our plane is already here, we should be boarding soon. We take a seat and wait to board as all of the passengers depart the plane. Ten minutes goes by and we still are not boarding and I noticed that the desk agent is gone. Twenty minutes pass and still no desk agent and the plane is just sitting there. Then I notice they are loading baggage on to the plane, good sign. Then I see they are fueling up the plane, VERY good sign. Then … well it just sat there some more. I look around to make sure I am at the right gate, which I was and start to think this is damn strange. Thirty minutes have past since our departure time and I see the maintenance crew at the plane, this is when my ass started to pucker up a little bit. Now I see maintenance people coming and going via the jet way, ass puckered up good and tight now. After about fifty minutes I stopped one of the desk agents and asked what was going on. She tells me that they are having to do some maintenance on the plane and says she will be right back. Fuck vague answers, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE GODDAMN PLANE?!?! A couple of minutes later I see her and ask her again, what is going on with the plane and I tell her that I think we have a right to know if something is wrong. She pulls me aside, I guess to keep me from making a scene and tells me that someone on the previous flight had clogged up the toilet and they didn’t want to have to bring “that” down the isle while people are sitting in the cabin. Damn lady, just tell us that up front, and don’t make me think that the engines are going to fall off or something. I can handle a clogged up crapper. So the Roto Rooter guy or whoever finally unclogs the crapper and we are free to board. Thank god. So we board the plane and everything seems to be cool, now that we are over an hour late taking off. We get in the air and the captain makes all of the usual announcements and shortly the flight attendant starts to make her way down the isle with the drink cart. By this time I am really getting a bit of an appetite on me. When she gets to us she ask if we would like a drink, we tell her what we would like and I asked her if she has anything to eat, she tells me they don’t have food on that flight. WTF?! Not even the peanuts or pretzels or anything? You got to be kidding me, it is around 9 local time which means it is going to be around 10 in Orlando. Grrr, I hope we can find something to eat when we land. And now that I am a bit miffed about it I am focusing on how hungry I am getting. About this time, and in my normal fashion, I decided to take a little nap for the rest of the flight. The next thing I know, I am waking up to the lovely sounds of the captain letting us know that we are on our final approach and that we would be landing soon. At this point, he is my favorite person in the world. We land with no problems and make our way to the baggage clam. Wait just a bit and get our bags, now we are off to see what if anything is still open in the airport. Of course it looked like a ghost town. No big deal, we can go get the rental car and get a bit to eat in the area. So we follow the signs to the rental car counter and start reading off the company names, there is Budget, Alamo, Hertz, and so on. But we do not see an Enterprise rental car counter. The reason this is important to the story is because we rented our car through Enterprise!! So we start to dig through our carry on, lets see, there is our map to the hotel ahh, there is our confirmation print out with the customer service number on it. We call customer service and they tell us that they don’t have a rental car counter at the airport and that we have to go and stand in a certain numbered parking spot or the shuttle bus will not stop, even if we are sitting on the near by bench. You got to be kidding me. So we trot our happy asses out to what ever numbered parking spot it is and wait for the shuttle bus. After several minutes the bus comes and we get on. As we are taking off I asked the bus driver if the Enterprise rental place is near the airport. Want to guess what he told us? He says nope, it is on the other side of town. At this point I don’t know why someone didn’t just come up and kick me right in the nuts. Silly us, we mapped how to get to the hotel from the airport, lot of good that is going to do us now. So after we finish the scenic tour of Orlando in the middle of the night we wind up at the Enterprise (very) remote lot. As we walk in there are a handful of other people there in line with only one … cashier or what ever they are called working, of course. As we are walking to the end of the line another lady comes out from some back room and tells us to come over to the VIP desk. I told her we are not VIP club members and she says it’s ok. Cool, things are looking up. Oh damn, I did it again, spoke to soon. We give her our information and she gives us a print out and says the car is around back behind the building in parking spot number 105. We thank her and head to our car. We get around back and there is not a car from parking space 90 to 120, I mean none. I see a guy sweeping up and ask him if the cars have been moved to clean up or what and he tells me no, they are just rented. Walk our happy selves back into the building and tell the lady there are no cars on that entire row. And the bitch chuckles. Had this been the only thing that had happened I might have thought it was cute or something but I am in no mood for fun and games at this point. About this time the guy who was sweeping up came in through the back door and tells the lady that we were not kidding and that there were no cars back there. At this time I spoke up and said that we would take the nice Caddy that was parked right by the door for the same price as the mid sized that we rented, you know, the one that is not there. She grins and says she can’t do that. But ask me if we would be ok with this PT Cruiser and points to a car that we can see through the glass doors. And I was proud of myself, I didn’t reply with a smart comment or anything, I simply told her that I thought that would be fine. So she starts typing, and she keeps typing and then she types a little more. And then you know what happened? She kept typing! What in the hell is she doing?!?! Writing a book? I am assuming she could pick up on the fact that we were becoming aggravated and walks out to the car, looks at something, walks back in and types some more. Then she goes out and writes down the VIN, comes back and types some more. At this point, she goes outside and gets the tag number, comes back in and you guessed it, types some more. Then she chuckles again and says “Oh, I can’t rent you that car…. It’s not ours to rent, it is some ones personal car” Oh Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ!!! It is at this point that I turn to my wife and say “Honey, you better handle this, I am about to loose it”. Several minutes later as I am looking through all of the free souvenirs brochures she calls me and motions me over. As I walk up I asked her if she got it all handled and she says yes and hands me the keys. I asked her what car we got and if she thought it was actually there. She points to the Caddy. And we got it for the mid-sized price. I congratulate her for a job well done. She even got a map of how to get from where we were to our hotel. Score one for the good guys! So we hop in the car and start to head towards the hotel. Oh did I mention that by this time it is after 1 in the morning? Yeah, nice huh. So we drive around until we find an ATM that looks at least semi safe. It was in a Circle K convenience store. I should have known that this could be interesting when the ATM also sold pre-paid calling cards to Cuba and Mexico. Anyway, back to the story, as I am getting our cash out of the machine a guys walks up to the register and is trying to buy beer but the lady working the register won’t sell it to him because he doesn’t have an ID. He is getting way too pissed (because he is already drunk) and very loud with her. He even asked the guy standing behind him if he thought the guy was old enough to buy beer and when the second guy said he didn’t know the drunk replied with a very clear FUCK YOU!. It is at this time that I motion to my wife with my right elbow bent at 90 degrees, my right hand in a sort of fist shape while rotating my wrist and mouthing the words “start the car” (she was sitting in the car waiting for me to get the cash), she looks at me with a puzzled look on her face, throws her hands up and mouths “What?!”, I repeat the motions and she looks at me again and says “what?” again. At this time I did the same thing and yell “START THE FUCKING CAR!” opps, that was out loud. The machine finally spits out my cash and I hit the door without making eye contact at the belligerent drunk who is treating the cashier. I get in the car with our cash and we take off out of there. Just a little way down the road we finally spot an open eating establishment, and it has a drive-thru. All hail Taco Bell!! We stock up on crap, I mean food and are on our way to the hotel. The map and directions are spot on… so far. At this time we turn onto the street where our hotel is. Yeah!! And it’s only a little after two in the morning! So we see a Marriott, nope not our hotel, we see a Holiday Inn, nope we are looking for the Hilton, then we see a Double Tree, close but no cigar. Long story short, we drove until the road ended and didn’t see our hotel. We must have missed it. So we turn around and drive back down the road, cross the intersection from which we turned and kept going. Still no Hilton. It is at this point that I just wanted to go home. We decided that it must have been where all of the other hotels where on the other side of the intersection, just like the directions said. Maybe we drove by the entrance too fast or something and missed the sign. So this time we are going to go down the road slower. Well someone must have felt sorry for us and as we are going down the road at a snails crawl we see a car tuning and the head lights shine on a sign. And it was quite a sight; the sign said “Hilton”. I think I actually did the happy dance in the car. Oh you may ask, why didn’t I see the sign? Well that would be because the sign was not lit, as in turned on. And why didn’t we see the name of the hotel in 8 foot letters on the top of the hotel, oh because they were not turned on either. Hey, wait a minute, NONE of the hotel lights are turned on. Come to fine out the power was out in that building, and that building only, so that they could test their generators. And guess what, they failed the test. So we check in via a spiral notebook and get handed our keys and glow sticks so we can see how to get to our room. Ok, this has got to be some kind of joke or I am having an F’ed up dream or something. There is no way this is really happening. The desk clerk tells me that we are in room 618. So I ask, as in the sixth floor? The clerk tells me yeah, the sixth floor. At this point, I remembered to ask the clerk for an 8 am wake up call. So now I got to drag my bags up six flights of stairs with a glow stick in a stairwell of a hotel that has no power and is hot and humid. Guess who was a little glowing ray of sunshine? So we get about 20 feet from the desk and I think if the power is out, how in the hell are we going to be able to get into our room with the card keys, the clerk tells us that they are battery operated. Just incase you were curious, now you know. So we start on our way to our room and I open my glow stick and the damn thing doesn’t work. I swear I was about to loose my mind. I got back to the desk and get one that works and continue to drag my bags up to our room. Well we finally get there, and thank god we got food from Taco Bell since it’s all the same crap just put together differently. Because we could not see anything, so we do our best to eat dinner and feel around for the bed. It was at this point that it hit me; IT was the urge to go #2. Now I am sure you have all heard the joke, how do blind people know when they are done wiping? Well I wasn’t about to find out and after a couple of minutes of weighing the pros and cons of my dilemma I decided that I should just hold it and go to bed. Even at the risk of internal damage, it would be better than risking the unknown. Now mind you this is just the first day, actually this is just getting to the hotel.

So the next day, I wake up at the crack of 9:45. What?! Why didn’t I get that wake up call? Oh yeah, that’s right the power was out and that’s all set up electronically. So we miss part of a day at one of the parks but that’s cool. We get dressed go down to one of the restaurants in the hotel pick up something to eat and head out to the park. We get there, find a place to park and I start taking the whole thing in. It’s pretty cool from the parking lot. We get inside and are having a pretty good time, several hours pass and the sun starts to set, this is when the place gets interesting. I start to notice the sound of young children crying a bit more than I did earlier in the day. But this does not bother me at all, we are in a theme park designed around cartoons. But what I am noticing is why they are crying. I see one guy stop walking turn around and yell at his single digit aged child to and I quote “HURRY THE FUCK UP!!” all the little boy wanted was to be carried because he was tired. The child had probably been forced to walk all over the park since it was open that day. Now I am a grown man, used to being up for hours at a time and was once an athlete and I was getting tired of walking around. What made this (pardon the upcoming description) unworthy AIDS infested pile of monkey shit think that this wonderful little child was going to be able to march all over god knows how many acres all day without his normal nap and not get tired or maybe a move a little slower. Just because the, for the lack of a better word, dad would rather spend his money on that fine Budweiser hat and NASCAR t-shirt than to spend the couple of bucks it would have taken to, oh I don’t know, buy more than one days worth of tickets and not try to cram the entire park into 12 hours he might have a better time with his family. But this was getting to be a bit more common than I was happy to see. But that’s not even the highlight. Anyway, back to the story. So the misses and I are strolling along, buying souvenirs and what not and just trying to block out all of the trashy people there and enjoy our time, which was great. We got the last tram out of Disney to take us to our car and we head back to the hotel. And this time the hotel had power, cool! So we eat dinner and head up to our room to prepare for the next day. The next morning we go to another park, enjoy the rides and it was pretty much a wash as far as excitement except for the lady who freaked out on the haunted house ride (it stopped, she freaked and started screaming at the top of her lunges, it was classic)… that is until we went to leave. If I am not mistaken we took the monorail to the park and we decided it would be fun to head back on the boat. We were talking and just sort of following the crowd and boarded the boat found a place to stand and were still talking about some of the things we had done and seen that day and just other idle chit chat. When we realized that we were the last two people on the boat and we still were not where we parked. At this time the captain and … his Gilligan look at us like they just found refugees and said “last stop!” Oh no, your kidding right? So I told them that I thought this was the boat that would take us back to our car. Both he and the G man got a giggle out of it and said you know, this happens every night and that they were not that boat. I get the just a minute motion and they go back into the cab of the boat and I hear one guy say “We could take them back to the camp ground, they could walk up to the road and wait for the bus” when the other guy says “they will probably get murdered if we do that”. I vote no on that option fellas! So they say that they can take us to the parking lot but it would be about 40 minutes before they could get us there. I get out a couple of $20s and hand to them and thank them for their help and we set off to the parking lot. Since we were completely alone on the boat we starting talking to guys running the boat and just got to joking around, did the whole “I’m the King of the world” thing just being silly, this comes into play in the story later. We get back to our car and crack up the heat, funny how it gets a bit chilly on the water at night in the fall. We make our way back to the hotel again and joke and laugh about how funny it was that we got on the wrong boat and what not. Get back to our room, order some room service and take a couple of showers but I was still cold. The next morning we wake up to a really cool morning with a thick fog covering the area. Seems that a cold front had moved into the area during the night. And I feel like I have been hit by a truck, backed over and then hit again. I really don’t want to let my wife down on our vacation but I really didn’t want to go out the way I felt that day. Well it so happens that the wife is a news junkie like I am and we caught Saddam Hussein that day so we decided to stay in and catch up on the news. Since we were not going to go to the park that day we thought we would go downstairs and see if we could get in on the “character breakfast” that our hotel offered. Have you ever been to one of these damn things? If you have, tell the people who haven’t been so we know what to expect ok! They tell us that they have room for us if we can come now, so we get dressed and head down stairs right away. We get seated at this little two person table sort of near the front but we got it. Well I am seated with my back to the rest of the dining room. Now mind you, we have not even gotten our juice or anything, I damn sure have not had my first cup of coffee yet and I have not been awake very long at all. We are sitting down waiting for our waitress when all of the sudden there is this big ass paw on my shoulder. I mean all I see is fur and a lot of it. Hell for all I knew it was Big Foot. Well instinctively I yell “SHIT!” Did I mention that I was in ear shot of about forty little fuckers who all in unison say “Ohhh, you said a bad word!” Then this bear fucking laughed at me, can you believe that. (Apparently it was a character that I later found out was called the bear in the big blue house, like I ever heard of it.) So here I am sitting by the door trying to enjoy my Mickey Mouse waffle while every family that leaves has to stop and tell me how much they enjoyed the entertainment. I should send each of them my laundry bill. After breakfast we head back to our room and sleep for most of the day and watch the news on Saddam between naps. Around dinner time we call down and the hotel has a Benihanas in the lobby. Yes sir, some Kobe beef and sake would hit the spot. Shortly before the time of our reservation we go down and check in at the lobby of the restaurant and are shown the way to our table right away. Not to shabby. We were seated with five of the biggest hillbillies you could possibly ever imagine. I mean these people must have never eaten out before in their lives. But still nothing to memorable other than the complete asses they made out of themselves. So the next day is the last day at the park, we wake up pack our stuff back into our suitcases head down, check out and go to the park with the suitcases in the trunk of the car. Oh side note here, the car had no cup holders, they might want to look into that because I get tired of spilling my diet coke. So we are getting to the park right before the parade starts and we are near the end of the parade route. So we get a spot and stand to wait for the parade. Let me set the scene for you. There are tons of people along the sidewalk of this semi-circle area right near the train station. Adults and children are everywhere waiting for the parade to start. About 12 feet to my left is a handicap ramp with this woman sitting on it and her boy friend/husband/baby daddy standing behind her. Coming from my right is a man pushing a stroller with a very young child in it, a lady who I assume is wife and another child that I would assume is under the age of 10. As the man approaches the ramp I see another man pushing a special needs child in a wheel chair coming behind the woman and the baby daddy. If you are not settled stop reading here and go get your popcorn because this is where it gets good. The man pushing the stroller stops, I was assuming to let the man pushing the wheel chair by, and says to the woman and baby daddy “You got to move” to which the woman replies “I aint got to do shit!” This is when the crowd got strangely quite and all of their focus was on this particular conversation. The man pushing the stroller mumbles something like “bitch” under his breath and scrounges by. The woman and baby daddy say something to each other and the woman hits the baby daddy on the leg and says “You should kick his ass, he hit me with that stroller” oh boy, this is about to get good!!! About this time the man with the special needs child in the wheelchair pushes past them and they are starting to get some grief form other people in the crowd about sitting on the wheel chair ramp. As the man pushing the wheel chair passes he stops, turns around to the couple and says “Why don’t you do something for someone besides yourselves!” It was at this point they began to exchange “FUCK YOU!”s. So I look over at my wife and said, this is the place they call "The Happiest Place on Earth" right? And the coolest part is that I got the whole thing on video. The ride to the airport and the flight back were uneventful but we could not wait to call some friends over to watch the parade video.

Pearls of wisdom

Sometimes, life is hard. But that is because you are a looser.
If at first you don’t succeed it is because you’re too stupid to read the directions.
The road to hell is still going to hell.
I believe that a wise man once said “holy shit, are you ALL stupid?!”
Anyone who will pay $5 for a cup of coffee deserves to spend $5 for a cup of coffee.
When you’re feeling down and out, you really should considered suicide.
You’re either with me or you’re an idiot.
A bird in the hand had better be fried, grilled or baked.
A tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye only happens in trailer parks.
All of the sins of the world sound like one hell of a party to me.
Cats are good for one thing, field goals.
An apple a day keeps illeagles coming into the country for work.
If frogs had wings that would be one jacked up looking frog.
Happiness is only a 976 phone call away.
If you ever feel worthless, go to Wal-Mart and look around at those people. They are worthless personified.
All the world is a stage and we are putting on a comedy of errors.
Early to bed, early to rise means you miss all of the good parties.
Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil…. NERD!
Does anyone ever tell someone to have a bad day?
Judge not, unless you got a gavel and a robe.
A diamond is forever unless you leave it in your room in a Vegas hotel.
A friend in need is SOL if they call me.
A house divided against itself can not stand, oh man I didn’t know there was going to be math.
A rose by any other name would cost about half of what you would pay for a rose.
Good things come to those who have the best credit.
All things must pass, even faster if you put Tabasco on it.
Born with a silver spoon in your mouth, must have been one hell of a delivery.

You’re homeless …. OH REALLY?!

The other day I was going to pick up a bit to eat at one of the thousands of local chain restaurants in the area. As I pull into the parking lot I notice a guy in a wheelchair going down the parking lot. In every effort I could possibility make not to be a dick, I make sure I pass him slowly and give him ample room as not to scare him. As I pass him I notice that he is wearing a couple of clear trash bags to keep dry as it had been raining earlier in the day. I see a vacant parking space and proceed to pull into it. At this point I notice that the guy in the wheelchair has passed and come back to the area of my car. I do not see him pass by my drivers’ side rear view mirror so I assume he is behind my car. As I get out of my car to go into the restaurant I find out that my assumption was correct. Now, let me make something perfectly clear. I understand that sometimes people fall on hard times and sometimes things take a turn for the worst. I also understand that not everyone asking for money is a scam artist. That being said the guy in the wheelchair calls out to me and in a polite way tells me that he is homeless and he would like some money so he could get a hotel room to get in out of the rain. Now I have never been one known to carry a lot of cash on me, but even if I had I damn sure wasn’t giving it to this dude. Not that I am some sicko …, well okay I am but this is different, and just don’t want to help my fellow man. This dude rolls up to me and tells me that he is homeless while he is IN A FUCKING ELECTRIC WHEELCHAIR!! Now I know that I may not be Steven Hawkins but I am not Forrest Gump either. But I am sure that there are not 110 volt outlets placed throughout the city. If slick is homeless how did he charge his ride? But I am proud of myself, I very politely told him that I didn’t have cash on me and went about getting my lunch. But come on, if you are going to try something like that, think it through is all I am saying.

What the fuck is wrong with people?

Seriously.

I saved a woman’s life yesterday.

Ok, well maybe technically I didn’t save it, but I refrained from killing her stupid ass. Let me paint the picture for you. I go bee-bopping my happy ass down the road to my office and everything is fine. I turn into my parking lot and see a space near the door of my building that is empty. Think to myself, looks like it’s going to be an okay day after all. About this time, I see this idiot that I work with come whipping into the parking lot, now mind you I am already in the parking lot and right by the space but since it is on my left I turn on my blinker and wait for her to pass. The fucking blinker should have been an indicator to her retarded ass that I was intending on parking there. Oh but hell no, she must have thought I was indicating to her that I was saving that space for her dipshit ass. The fucking moron whips into the space. I was dumbfounded. I mean I was stopped in the lot next to the space and she just pulled the mental-midget-mobile right in. So I purposely waited for her to get out of her car thinking that she would realize that she fucked up. Nope, ignoramious gets out, walks right in front of my car and into the building. For a moment I contemplated if I was invisible. But to no avail. So I back down the lane to find this space WAY down the lot. I can not wait until she is parked in the lot with an open space on her left side. I am going to park so close to her that an Ethiopian could not walk between the cars and I think I will go to lunch with someone else that day. She’s completely clueless is what cheeses me off the most. I mean if it was someone with half a brain and was doing it to screw with me, I could deal with that. But she has no idea what she did was wrong. She is also a complete idiot who feels that people should do shit for her because she’s female. Well guess what, I am a feminist and I feel that a woman should be able to do everything men can do, including opening your own damn door, getting your own chair when the conference room has none left and so on. I don’t know, maybe it is just because she is eight thousand years old and she grew up in a different time, or maybe road courtesy has gone away.

I swear I was so close to giving her a custom pinstripe job.

Fortune Cookies

What ever happened to getting a fortune in fortune cookies? Has Confucius said everything he has to say? Cause I have not heard from his ass in a long time. I remember as a kid I would get fortunes that actually said something. Things like “You will take a trip to a far land”. Well yeah, it’s pretty vague, but nothing like “A stranger will cross your path in the near future”. Well no shit. Ray Charles could see that. Unless I move into my big ass plastic bubble, I am pretty sure a stranger will cross my path. But I want some really good fortunes. I want to hear about finding riches in far away lands. And getting some good news from a loved one, not generic crap like “A good deed will be done for you”. I know this may be a shock but a guy held the door open for me leaving the restaurant, was that the good deed? If so I got ripped off. And tell Confucius to get off his lazy ass and give me specifics. Tell me stuff like “You will soon get a boat load of cash that some dildo left in the tray at the ATM”. Now that would be a fortune.

Oh yeah, as a P.S. to the fortune cookie writers, your lotto numbers suck! Never had one hit. Bastards.

And, the lemon flavored cookies suck, don’t get fancy on us. I don’t want to be burping that shit for hours to come. Maybe they should put that in a fortune cookie. "You will taste this crap until 4 am"

So I walk up and there are these two totally hot blondes in this hot tub…

Ok, now that I have your attention. I would like to start off by saying that I am very patriotic, don’t get that wrong. I love my country and I am very proud of everyone who serves to protect it. But along the same lines, just because you joined the military does not mean that everyone in the country should bow down and kiss your feet like you are some kind of hero. Like I said, I am proud of those who serve to protect it. Not those who use the uniform as some sort of a “get one free” card. And just because you were in the (enter military branch here) don’t mean you wanted to defended this wonderful country. I know a lot of you out there did it because you either couldn’t get into college or have zero skills for the real world. And mom and dad said get your lazy ass out of bed and do something you worthless heap of molten rhinoceros dung. So you join the military. Please do us all a favor and keep you made up stories to yourself. If you are an engineer or “material specialist” (aka seamstress), I don’t want to hear your BS stories of how you single handedly fought an entire pack of (insert enemy of choice here) with nothing but your M-16, one clip of ammo and a butter knife. Save your bullshit for someone who needs to fertilize their garden. If you are an engineer, for the most part you are either building something up or tearing it down (construction or demolition). So I know better than to believe that you were on the front line. And please, if you were not even in the country where there was any fighting going on, don’t brag about serving at that time. Seriously, save it. I have been around the military entirely too much in life to honestly believe some your crap. Yeah, I know that if there is a need, pretty much anyone can be made to fight. But it doesn’t mean it happened. So if you’re a cook and you lost the tip of your little pinky finger because you are too stupid to pay attention when you are cutting onions, don’t make yourself out to be a hero. You’re embarrassing yourself and my goddamn country. I know this doesn’t apply to everyone in any branch of the armed services. I am just saying that I have witnessed entirely too many people making themselves out to be Rambo when they are really closer to being Rain Man. And yes, I will be the first to admit that I never served or even thought of it. Don’t mean I don’t have the utmost respect for those who went it for the right reason. I know I am not cut out for it, which is why I didn’t take Uncle Sam for a ride. Maybe I am crazy or maybe I actually have a conscious, but I doubt it. Oh and on a final note, if you really don’t have something from being exposed to something in a foreign land or fighting, (i.e. Agent Orange, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the Sniffles, Cooties…) have a little self-respect and pride and don’t try to bleed the government for more money.

Unfreakingbelievable!!

The forecast calls for rain!!

Of course as fate would have it, it is going to start around, oh Friday night! And should be raining until, oh sometime Monday!! Unreal. I need to work on my game before the start of the season and it doesn’t look like there is much of a chance of that happening.

A desperate plea for help from a higher power!

Ok, I am not going to preach to anyone and I wouldn’t push religion on anyone. But people I need some spiritual help!! I need everyone regardless of religious belief or affiliation to pray to the higher being of your choice for some rain, I got steaks and ribs that really need to be put on the grill and this burn ban thing is getting ridiculous! Let me rephrase that, if there is anyway we could get enough rain between now and Saturday that would be great. I am working on a tee time for Saturday and I would like to be sans precipitation for that. And then after Saturday it could pick back up and rain again for a couple of days.

It is just sheer hell knowing that there is some top quality beef just sitting in my freezer when what it really wants is to be laid atop a metal rack over a nice stack of white hot coals. Every time I walk by the freezer I can hear those tender little morsels of tasty goodness calling out to me. They say “We were not made to sit in a freezer, we like the heat! We want to be grilled and put on a plate next to our best friend Baked Potato! Oh how we miss Baked Potato, we love him! Please help us escape this frozen hell.” For the love of everything holy let it rain!! And it’s not like this is just one or two whiney little fillets, oh no, it is much more serious than that. I have dozens of prime cuts that need to be freed from the icy grips of the white box o’ cold.

Now yeah, I could bake the ribs in the oven, but what good is that? Ribs got to have smoke. Can’t do smoke in the kitchen, well not on purpose anyway. That’s like having tacos with just plain ground beef, no seasoning. Just can’t have that. So if I can, I would just enough rain to where I can fire up the grill on Saturday afternoon when I get back from a nice round of golf. Can anyone help me?

Customer Service with a smile?

Maybe I am the ultimate optimist, but I figure that maybe if I lead by example that other people may catch on. The night before last is an example.

I had some grocery shopping to do, and I knew that I had to buy a lot of stuff and I was going to use rebates and coupons for it. So what did I do? I went late at night because I know that there will be less people in the store during this time. So I trot my way up to my local grocery store and get my buggy and start shopping. I filled that sucker up, I mean over the top full! As I checked over my list to make sure I had gotten everything I was making my way up to the check out register. Since I knew that I had coupons and rebates to use I was looking for a regular check out with a cashier, not a self-check out. I catch the attention of one of the managers and he motions for this kid to open a register and tells me to go to that register. So here I am with this huge buggy full of stuff and I do what I think is the nice thing and I laid my rebates and coupons on top of the items they pertain to. Well the check out dude doesn’t quite get it. So how collects all of the coupons and stacks them up while he proceeds to continue checking me out. Which I knew was the start of a bad thing. Well “Mr. Personality” looks at me and goes, “oh you got coupons!?” Well good morning to you too sunshine, time to wake up and get started with your day huh? So he looks at the rebates and says “I don’t know what to do with these” and he’s talking to me, like I fucking work there. So I told him to run them threw his machine and take that amount off of my bill. It was at this point that I heard the six words that everyone hates to here, “Need a manager on isle 8”. He has to have this manager show him how to do it. The manager guy was pretty cool and said they are going to need the products back that pertain to the coupons because they have to ring them up that way or something like that. I begin to take the items back out of the buggy when he says he thinks he can get around that. He is typing on the cash register like he is writing his memoirs or something. So I ask him if he needs the items or not and he lets me know that he can get around it. So he is talking to me indirectly but acts like he is talking to Gomer the cashier and says “Ideally you should get the coupons before you total everything up”, at this point I interjected that I had laid all of the coupons on the items they go to and had intentionally grouped all of the like items together for that reason and that he just collected them. Don’t be sarcastic in front of the guy who gives new meaning to the word. It was at this point that I considered asking them if they would bag each item separately (oh yes, I have done that and oh yes they will bag them that way). But I reframed. So as clean up on isle three boy is processing all of the coupons he turns to the lady behind me, who had just walked up, and says “It’s going to be a while, he has a lot of these”. You know, I am amazed I didn’t just bitch slap him until he started to speak fluent German. So I kindly (yeah right) say “yep, it will take a while unless you want to give me the value of those in cash”. The lady behind me chuckled but check out boy didn’t find it funny, wonder why. You know, he was acting like this money was coming out of his damn check or something. It’s not my fault that he doesn’t have a skill that someone would pay more than minimum wage for. So anyway, after several minutes we are done, saved $75, damn sure well worth it. So Mr. Go Get the buggies out of the parking lot says “Hey Cindy (manager in the area) what do I do with these?” She walks over and looks at them, says they are checks and he should treat them just like checks. She tells him, which means indirectly telling me, that she knows they are a pain to deal with. At which time I spoke up oh so clearly and let them know that I just saved $75 dollars so it was all worth it which was accompanied with a “I dare you to say something” look.

Here is my gripe, I purposely went in the middle of the night (almost 11:00) so that my rebates would not be a big deal and I still got crap over it. Seriously, when is the store going to be more dead than middle of the night on a Monday night? I am even the guy who puts thing back where they belong when I realize I got to many, the wrong kind or changed my mind. I thought I was doing the courteous thing. Well screw that.

They think it was a pain this time? You have not seen a pain yet. I was sure to let them know when I was leaving that next time I will be back with more coupons on double/triple coupon days. And I think I will need to have every item double bagged individually. And I will be sure to go up there with a shit load of coupons about 1:00 on Saturday afternoons too.

When did common sense become a thing of the past?

I am not talking about putting pennies in a light socket, playing tag with Freddie Krueger, or giving the cops the finger. There is no helping people like that.

I am talking about people who walk into either the only or main entrance to a mall, office building, church, or any place of business and stop once they are inside the door. Now I am not talking about people who walk into a building several feet, I am talking about those morons who are standing inches from the door frame. These mental midgets stop so close that you can not open the door because you will hit them with it. And have absolutely no idea that someone else might want to use that same door. This would be different if this was the front door to their apartment or water closet. But these people are blocking an entry that dozens if not hundreds of other people are trying to get threw right behind them. I simply wonder what goes on in their heads. Do they get sudden amnesia? Where they somehow expecting the inside to be different? Did they think when they walked into the door of the building with the great big “MALL” sign on it that there would be a wonderful land of unicorns, elves, dragons and talking animals all singing “We Are The World” or some crap like that? Or did they think it was some big secret magical Snuffaluffagus building that only they could see and where shocked when low and behold, they open the door and there are actually other people in there? Or maybe it’s not that complex. Maybe the change in temperature caused their bodies to go into shock and causes them to be temporary paralyzed. I just don’t know. These are the same people who will be four to a group standing in a three foot wide hallway and have absolutely no clue that they are blocking the entire way. There is more room in the damn clown car at Ringling Bro.’s than these people have left anyone to get by.

Why is it so hard to be aware of your surroundings? How hard is it to notice the brightly painted one ton hunk of metal in the lane next to you? Been there for almost ten minutes, you decide change lanes and are shocked to find out that someone else might be on the road too. How dare they! Speaking of driving dilemmas, when did the phone call take priority over driving while going down the road when behind the wheel? What the hell is so important that you can not maintain a constant speed and realize that your slow ass is holding up a line of traffic that fades into the distance in my rear-view mirror? And why is it so hard to get your slow ass out of the left lane? And when I try to pass your molasses ass you suddenly decide its time to speed up and catch the car in front of you, twenty miles away. God forbid someone pass you. You see, I not only complain, but I try to come up with ways to make things better. And I think I have one, and I can explain it in two words, Paintball Gun! That’s right. When I get behind you and finally get over into the lane next to you, you’re going to look like Bonnie Lee Blakely (or what ever her name is) and I am going to start doing my Robert Blake impression. I am going to open fire all over some windows until someone can get their priorities straight. Yes, you have every right (not really, left lanes are for passing, but my state just don’t have that posted) to be in that lane and I have every right to let you know that you are a moron. I am guessing that morons don’t know they are morons and they need to know. I just hope these people don’t screw as slow as they drive or they will never be able to keep a man/woman happy. And what is it that makes depth perception so hard to get? If you see a car coming down the road and another car is coming behind them but not ridding there bumper like they are being towed, what make people think it is a good idea to pull out right after the first car has passed? And why is it I can be on a three lane road with no one else on the road but me and someone think it’s a good idea to pull out in front of me in the lane I am in? Again I have a fix for this problem too. Remember the old black and white movies where the villain takes the girl and ties her to the railroad tracks when the train was coming? What did each of those trains have on the front of it? That’s right, a cattle catcher. So go ahead pull your soon to be crippled ass out in front of me. Because I am going to buy stock in wheelchairs and Plaster of Paris, you’re going to make me a wealthy man. I am going to weld a cattle catcher onto the front of my car, get the words “No Insurance” across and windshield and let the good times roll! Its crash up derby time boys and girls. Just doing my part to thin the idiots out of the population.

Oh yeah, since I have plenty of time before the holidays roll around again I am going to save up and buy some people a mirror, since they obviously don’t have one. Not talking about the fashion victims of society. No, no, no, I am talking about people who wear their clothes so tight that they look like they are trying to verify the thread count. And then there are the people who have the grooming skills to make Nick Nolte’s mug-shot look like a Toni and Guy ad. And ladies, please pay attention to this part! If you have facial hair, pluck it, tweeze it, shave it, duct tape it, just do something! I was in a doctor’s office this morning and there was an office assistant who must have been trying to become the first female member of ZZ Top. Take a weed whacker to that shit! You wonder why you are home alone every night? It might be because you have a beard that would make Santa Clause envious. Even Elvis didn’t have pork chops that hairy. Look, I am not trying to make fun of people or belittle anyone or anything like that, but come on. Maybe she has a glad problem or something that I don’t know about but I am sure that there is something that could be done to maintain a better self image. That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.

I could go on and on, but I will try to reframe. I am just trying to help make this a better place for everyone.

To take a line from a friend of mine, don’t get dead!

My Life on Hidden Camera!

Let me start my first blog by telling you a little about myself. I am a thirty-something married man with a family, which means that I drink entirely too much. Actually that’s not true, my wife is wonderful and my children are amazing. I just wonder how they got stuck with me. That is kind of why this blog, my first blog (welcome to the 90s!!) is titled “My Life on Hidden Camera”. But I will touch on that a little later. But first, more about me, I have a good job, which means that I have incredible BS skills. I was born and raised in a small town and currently live in a major U.S. city, which makes for some interesting observations. It also keeps my soap box from getting dusty. I suffer from think-out-loud syndrome (i.e. I tend to openly comment on things I see or hear which is what made me think about starting one of the blog thingies). I also have many interests which I am sure will get shared during the duration of this blog. I also tend to ramble a bit.

I swear my life must be some kind of hidden camera reality show, much like the movie The Truman Show with Jim Carrey, where the producers put him in various situations to see how he would react. Lately, that is how I feel that my life has been. In this blog I will share with you many of my experiences and observations in life. As I have stated to some people that know me, I don’t have vacations, I have adventures!

In this blog, none of the names of the innocent will be changed, screw them!

Yesterday was not a vacation but just a small sample of what I am talking about. In an effort to save money the wife and I decided to sign up for one of those home delivery grocery services. We found a good deal on one, got a freezer tons and food and all that good stuff. And believe it or not the guy showed up pretty close to the time he was supposed to be there. When I saw him at the door I thought to myself this is going to be a good day, he is already here, I can get to work while the clock still says AM on it and things will be cool. Have you ever had one of those times when you thought to yourself, shit I spoke to soon? Yeah, well this was one of them. I tell the guy to pull around back so that he can load the freezer in to our laundry room threw the garage. He pulls up and just parks this huge truck in the back, which is fine with me. Well just about the time he gets everything loaded onto the lift and is about to lower the freezer and all of the food down to the ground my neighbor opens his garage door and kind of looks like he is not going to be able to back his car out. Well he waved and said it was ok that he had plenty of room. Cool, issue with the neighbor avoided. So the guy gets the freezer off the truck and these 3 boxes of food and begins to lower them down to the ground. He dollies the freezer into the laundry room and hooks it up, so far so good. He ask me if I want to check off everything that we are supposed to be getting and I tell him “sure”. We are going threw this list and everything looks good, this guy is even telling me where on the list the items would be and I am thinking to myself this guy is good, everything is going to be fine. So it looks like we are about three quarters of the way threw the list and he says to me, “Ok, can you sign here and here and initial here, here and here?” Of course I asked him “What about all of these other items over here?” To which his answer is “Oh!” Well shit, here we go again. He looks around; gathers up the boxes and goes threw them, one of three, two of three and three of three. Well no shit Sherlock, I can count and I am not completely retarded but just because you have three boxes there don’t mean I got all of my food that we paid for. So he tells me that the warehouse must not have put those items in the order. Ya think! Damn, maybe this guy can find Osama, he is good! So I ask him what do I need to do to get everything we paid for. He tells me to call this number, speak to so and so and they will get us the rest of the order. Ok, so will they run it back out today or something? Oh hell no, it wont be for a couple of weeks. Lovely, just freaking lovely. So I call and talk to the nice lady’s voicemail leave my number, name and a brief message. Well she actually calls me back, not just the same day but within an hour or so. She tells me that the warehouse is having problems with some bullshit and blah blah blah. The entire time I am thinking I could care less, just want my stuff I bought. So the shyster part of me taps me on the shoulder and convinces me to make this worth while. I quickly look at the foods that were not sent and tell her that I was really bummed out because we were going to have friends and family over and cook a big meal as a sort of celebration dinner (I guess we were going to celebrate saving money or some crap but she didn’t ask and I didn’t volunteer, but really who would have a party because they joined a home grocery service) and that we were going to try to get everyone else to join the service as well. So she can tell that I am kind of not digging the whole missing items thing and throws in a few free steaks for us because of the inconvenience. And then she lets me know that they are going to schedule a special delivery for us and it should be a week sooner than they thought it would be originally. I really should be ashamed, but I’m not. I thank her and proceed to get ready to roll into the office. So I am here now but the day is still young.

More to come I am sure…

Giving this blog thing a shot

Since I have absolutely no idea of whom, if anyone will be reading this I guess that I will write as if there is a mass of people who actually are reading this.

I have been considering doing one of these blog things for the last couple of days. Today I actually went out to check out a few random blogs and now I am having to rethink this whole thing. I mean not to point fingers or anything but some of these people got problems. I mean I have seen way to much personal information from some of these people and a TREMENDIOUS amount of BS. Seems that a lot of people like to take pictures of themselves at “parties” to show how cool they are or something. If that is something you’re looking for, this blog is going to be a serious disappointment. In short, let me give you a list of things you won’t see if I do actually follow threw with this and continue to post. You will not see pictures of stupid cats or more damn graphics than Kinkos ever thought about printing, you won’t see pictures of me posed with my head tilted to one side like I am too cool for the room or pictures where I am flexing my editing skills, actually you probably won’t see pictures at all. You also won’t see any sort of political humor regardless of the newspaper it came from. I doubt I will be posting recipes or any secret codes or any crap like that. I also won’t be bragging on what new cool toy or gadget I just got and post the picture from the manufactures webpage. For the most part, you will be able to read what ever I am bitching about at the time. That’s pretty much it. No counters of what the hell ever is going on in my life, no icons letting you know what the weather is where I am. No jokes that you probably heard in 8th grade or some cute saying off of a bumper sticker. No angles or cherubs, no Celtic crap, none of those damn things that change your mouse pointer to some cutesy crap. You also won’t see pics of me in some kind of a Billy Badass pose, holding a gun or trying to look tough, I am just not gay like that. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not this angry misunderstood punk type either. Just not into all of the “hey notice me” junk. I also doubt that you will get any really “deep” thoughts from me. I am sure there are other things that you won’t see on this blog but I think you get the point. You might get a lot of BS, but that’s about it. At best, my spelling and use of grammar is atrocious at best. If that bothers you, move along now. If you find this entertaining, that’s great I may continue. If you want pass the URL along if you think someone else will find this entertaining, not like this is Fight Club or something.