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.