The Great TP Poll, Fall Edition

So some of you who read/stalk my wife's blog may remember a while ago, we decided to employ the principles of democracy to help settle our ongoing argument of whether Folding or Crinkling our TP is better. I suspect that most of my readers are probably folders, but if you are a fellow folder I encourage you to check out Kristen's blog and vote again. If you know other folders, please encourage them to vote. If you crinkle and/or know a lot of crinklers, you can disregard this post...

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Quantum of Promotional Consideration

I am more than a casual fan of James Bond movies. Not fanatic, mind you, but I consider it an early birthday present every few years when James Bond visits in November. The cars, the gadgets, the smoothness, (I intentionally exclude women to preserve the peace in my jurisdiction) it's easy to see why James Bond is a paragon of masculinity and role model to many a young nerd, not to mention my 3 year old daughter.

The latest two films are great. I maintain that Casino Royale was the greatest bond movie to date, mainly because it withstands scrutiny on its own merit, and is a stand- alone good film. Quantum of Solace is equally good, lives up to expectations, has one of the most intense car chases since "Ronin," and if you have not seen it, I would encourage you to do so. Money and time well spent, although I do have a few beefs that I will address in a moment.

First, in preparation for the release of the newest Bond film, Spike TV ran a marathon of some of the classics, and I decided to catch up. Upon watching several of the old films, I came to ten realizations...

1 - If you really want a stark reminder of how good the newest films are, watch the older ones.
2 - I think the majority of the "villain plot-lines" are recycled every 5-10 years.
3 - Austin Powers movies are much funnier after watching "Never Say Never Again." Seriously, watch it if you haven't recently. The cat, the closed circuit tv feed threat to the UN, the TV footage of the nuclear blast... It's like deja vu with a young, chubby Kim Bassinger. Comedy.
4 - Screenwriting has improved almost as much as computer technology in the last 45 years.
5 - Christopher Lee is much more intimidating as an evil wizard or a sith lord than he is as an assassin with 3 nipples (Man with the Golden Gun).
6 - Aston Martins are hot cars. Okay, this one is obvious, but it bears repeating. Have you seen a DBS? Even the classic DB5 (that Connery runs into a wall and Craig wins in a game of Texas Hold-em) could make a grown man weep with joy. I touched one once.
7 - Life imitates art. In the 60's, Goldfinger was released and the car had a tracking system that could pinpoint the target on a map and plot an intercept course (sort of - it was always a zoomed-in close up of what was probably a microfiche, but you got the idea) and now, virtually every car manufacturer has a GPS map system as an option at least on some of their vehicles. The same could be said for Cell phones and star trek, but that is a topic for another post.
8 - Old movies are painfully slow, especially when segmented by basic-cable channel commercial ratios of 2 minutes program to 1 minute commercial, even with a DVR.
9 - Daniel Craig's Bond would kick the crap out of Connery, Moore, Lazenby, and probably Dalton at the same time, although Timmy is so mad all the time he might have a shot. I won't speak to Pierce's ability to hold his own, mainly because he is a fellow Irishman and that is blasphemy, and anyone who has fought an Irishman knows we are not to be underestimated.
10 - Women have gotten better looking over the past 40 years. Enough said.

Now, my 3 "beefs" with Bond films, including the most recent ones.
1 - Promotional Consideration - If you see Q of S a second time (or Casino for that matter), pay attention to the cars. Not just the beautiful Aston, but all the cars (Ford, Volvo, Jaguar, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, etc.). They are all Ford, or Ford subsidiaries (seriously, even the beater that he steals in Port Au Prince is an `80s Ford Bronco). Now that is fine, the Wachowski brothers used all GM cars for their awesome freeway scene, but what bugs me is that many of the cars don't even exist, or are unobtainable in the US. The Hydrogen powered Ford Edge that is the "official car of the baddies" in the movie isn't even in pre-pre-testing. If you must place a product in a movie, make it a real product that I can go out and buy, or at least drool over, like his Omega Seamaster Automatic. They have those at J. Brooks in the Gateway, and I visit them every time I go there. I think if Ford had launched a car like the Mondeo (that Bond drives in Casino) or a real WORKING Hydrogen powered Edge stateside, they could have stayed home last week when the General and Mr. Chrysler went to DC with their guitar case, piece of cardboard, and Sharpie.
2 - Villains either have to be pretty dumb, or all have the same realtor. In Austin Powers, Dr. Evil asks that his "underground lair" be built inside a hollowed out volcano. Ironically, in almost every movie, there are conveniently placed Hydrogen tanks primed for explosion, giant antennae on which to impale both henchmen and villians alike, a convenient facade (dilapidated building, dam, ocean oil drilling platform, nuclear train left over from the cold war, etc.), and some sort of overly elaborate power system that is inevitably destroyed by the protagonist in the climax. If I ever become a villian, I am buying a friggin' bomb shelter that runs on nothing more volatile than candles and a hotplate. It will still have sharks with laser beams though, naturally.
3 - It doesn't matter how much time passes, I am still not James Bond. This just isn't fair. Everyone on earth gets older, slower, fatter, and worse looking, but not Bond, and it's just not fair. I think the people I feel the worst for are the actors. Every so often, when gravity starts to work its magic, they just change him out for a new model. At the end of the credits it always says "James Bond Will Return," but it should say something like, "Just not as the same person." It should be said, however, that Connery still could come back again, since he did that a few times.

So I have to consign myself that I will neither become James Bond (I only figured that out around the time "Goldeneye" came out), nor will I have the chance to play him in a movie, because, frankly, I can't act. If anyone suspects this is false modesty, I will try and track down a video of my last acting role as "Charlie the Anvil Salesman" in the Wasatch Jr. High production of "the Music Man" and that should alleviate any doubts as to my lack of acting prowess. So I must live vicariously through the somewhat regular installments of product placement, "Evil plan" recycling, senseless womanizing, Aston Martin thrashing exploits of the character that "invented" the spy. All I can say is "KEEP IT COMING!"

Oh sweet, sweet internet...

So I read an article a while back that said in China, psychologists have begun to treat what they refer to as a "technology addiction." This is basically the growing trend of people to forsake meaningful human contact for the cold, lifeless series of tubes that is the internet. The funny thing is that they are talking about it in China, and I have yet to hear it brought up stateside. Isn't this the kind of thing that Oprah usually blows the cover off?

So I come down to my basement office today, and on my favorite gadget blog, find this Dilbert cartoon, that so completely expresses the psycho-emotional dilemma that I experience daily, and in sharing it I almost don't need to comment.


Almost... I'll keep this one to a brief list of 5 pieces of evidence that our society already has an unhealthy technology addiction, and if not our society, well, me...

1 - Text Messaging. If you doubt this, go to a restaurant, order a large water, and watch. I guarantee that you will see several tables where, rather than meaningful conversation, two people are sitting and simultaneously texting other people. What does it say when we are so preoccupied with "keeping in touch" that we fail to engage on a meaningful level? What? Did you say something, sorry, I got a text...

2 - Social Networking Sites. Now I confess I love Facebook. You can find people that you haven't taken the effort to keep in touch with or wouldn't have the stones to track down, and engage in a conveniently superficial relationship limited to 1-3 sentence "wall posts," status updates (and their associated comments), a personal message if you want to go really crazy, and then of course the endless stream of surveys, applications, causes, and all the other stuff that really amounts to a whole lot of nothing. Why not just call someone? Because you can't do that from your blackberry during a meeting, and the Jr High crush that tracks you down to apologize for being unkind would seem a lot more creepy to your spouse if she called you out of the blue.

3 - Cell Phones. These things are awesome. Not only do they bankroll this little operation of mine, but how cool is it that we have access to virtually everything and can strap it to our hip or throw it in our pocket or purse. The world is our phone booth (Remember phonebooths?) and our car becomes entertainment central. Even my 1-year-old picks up ANY phone, opens it if it is a flip, says "Hello? Ummmmm..." and then frantically presses keys with her thumbs,, as if she is sending a text message. How cool is that? An entirely untapped market of the cell phone companies to start targeting. The crazy thing is that I have seen people who lose their house or car due to financial troubles, but they won't cancel their cell phone because they have to be connected. Well, if you are homeless, at least people can still get ahold of you...

4 - TV. I love TV. I know, it isn't really something that you tell people, but let's be honest, it is an escape from the cruel, cold, unexciting, and rather anti-climactic world that is painfully devoid of a soundtrack. Now, as if voluntary subjection to radiation, normalized laziness, and complete withdrawal from reality aren't enough, we have digital video recorders that allow us to watch more TV in the same amount of time by eliminating commercials. Good thing, because when it boils down to it, there really are a lot of good things on...

5 - Blogs. Oh the irony. Rather than reading books, newspapers, or magazines, we read bite-sized chunks of information, conveniently concise enough that when our attention span starts to wane, we can move on to the next random, impertinent topic that the blogger feels wont to direct our attention to. We keep track of family and friends conveniently on our computers, and no longer have to tell people what we are doing, we just blog it and leave the ball in their court. The sad thing is that if you watch news programs, many of the anchors are now forced to Blog while on the air, in order to seem "in touch."

Now, after reading blogs, texting, skipping commercials, networking socially, our attention spans are reduced to being capable of little more than brief, insubstantial focus and can only be captured by sensationalism and emotional pandering. I wonder what will "they" come up with next. I am sure what ever it is it will be great, and I will embrace it a full two years before anyone else, probably because I read about it on my favorite blog, and a friend listed "it" as something they are a fan of on their facebook page... Wait are you still reading? Sorry, I moved on 2 paragraphs ago and I am currently chatting with a former employee through google talk. Sorry... Seacrest OUT!

Bailouts Shmailouts

Do any of my loyal readers remember the good old days? Maybe it is my age catching up with me (I DO turn 31 on Sunday) but I remember when companies were expected to take care of themselves, and if they didn't, they were bought out by other companies. Now granted, I did take my Econ class in college pass/fail (because I was WORKING to pay for school, imagine that) but I am pretty sure the professor addressed this as one of the fundamentals of a free market economy. Now, the government is picking and choosing who they bail out, and the biggest complaint I hear from people is "Where is my bailout?" What the freaking hell? I usually refrain from using profanity here, so for you sensitive readers I apologize, but seriously! We are a nation of over-consumers. We feel entitled to more, not because we have earned it, or even need it, but because we are American.

Now the banks are happy, and the stock market is still spiraling lower and lower (below 8000 today I hear), but apparently GM forgot to pay attention to the common rules of fiscal responsibility and is in danger of running out of money. Huh? The General is the largest car company in the world. 1 in 3 cars sold is made by GM or a subsidiary and they ran out of money? I guess they got big not by being good, but because they are American, and doggone it, they deserved to. I realized that they must really be desperate when I received an email from them on my work email account. (Hence the picture - get it? Spam?) It was addressed to all employees of Sprint enrolled in the employee discount program (GM gives a substantial discount to Sprint employees, so if this inspires you to rush out and buy an american car, talk to me first. The financial apocalypse is no reason to pay full price!) and urgently encouraged them to write, email, petition, fax, or threaten their congressman/woman to support the proposed $25 Billion dollar bailout of the 3 detroit automakers, Ford, GM, and Chrysler. I was surprised to know 3 things.

1 - Apparently there are lots of americans who work in the auto industry. Weird, I thought all cars were made in Japan, Korea, Canada, or Mexico (Seriously, most Volkswagens are now made in Mexico, and the Chevy Equinox is based on a Suzuki, which is manufactured in Canada).

2 - Apparently, Chrysler is still a company. Last I heard, they were consumed by Cerberus, a three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades, but apparently Cerberus is actually a company. I thought for sure that the new Chrysler Sebring could only have been spewed from Hades itself, but I guess since the company still exists they are in pretty good shape, and I hear they launched the Challenger, a new V8 muscle car. All right, that should get us ALL back on track.

3 - Apparently, in CEO and corporate marketing schools they teach you that when you have overspent, consistently produced sub-standard products, mismanaged assets, squandered opportunities to capitalize on new technology (Rent "the death of the Electric Car" if you doubt me here), and basically flown logic and your shareholders the bird, the American way is to ask for a bailout, and spend some of your last cash on a massive viral marketing campaign, even though you may not have enough cash on hand to continue making payroll after the first of the year. I have to hand it to them, I thought launching the Hummer line was genius, but this really takes the cake.

The reason I am most upset isn't what you may suspect. I am not a complete communist/fascist when it comes to my car tastes, (I do like VW, but have you seen a Chinese car? Ugh) and I do not feel slighted that I am not getting bailed out. Sure I could find something creative to spend a few billion on if Hank and Ben kicked it my way, but the thing I am most worried about is the fate of the Camaro. I have been waiting for this car since the Transformers Movie a few summers back, and if GM goes down, I may not get one, or worse - I may have to pay full price! I know that seems silly, no one pays full price for a GM car, but really, our kids are already on the hook for 700 Billion, what's another 25? Think of the lost jobs, the compounding financial turmoil, the billions in lost tax revenue, but most important, think of my Camaro.

So this is my plea to all my faithful readers and blog-stalkers alike - call your congressman and ask him to bail out our automakers, because why should they have to follow the rules of a free market economy when the banks don't? And even if you don't agree with the fundamental principles of capitalism, look at this thing! It's beautiful, and when I get one, I will take you for a ride. No you can't drive, but if I get stuck in the snow, you can help push me out of the snowbank.

A Littel Attention to Detail's

Okay enough about politics and seriousness, time for a rant. Why is it that people in this country don't feel the need to correctly speak, spell or punctuate? This is a rapidly declining standard that is aggravating beyond words. Perhaps it was that my Dad spoke the King (or Queen's) English, and insisted that I did as well, but this is sort of a matter of pride for me, since I still retain my British citizenship I need to be able to speak the language that the country spawned. Not saying I don't have my moments where I slip up in speach, but for heaven's sake people...

Let's make this a "top three, scratch that four" complaints. I hope not to offend anyone, but if I do, I apologize in advance. Here goes.

1 - Email - Since messages are generally short and less formal, there is an apparent supposition that it is not necessary to spell things correctly, punctuate, capitalize, or even string words together coherently, let alone spell people's names correctly. I had a regional director of marketing that consistently spelled a colleague's name "Brain" in stead of "Brian." Really? You make $100k a year and can't check to make sure you are spelling a co-worker's name correctly? I won't even talk about the numerous times we had to get out the urim and thumim to make sense of a weekly marketing update. I understand occasional mistakes, but every word processing program since the first Windows I used over 15 years ago has had a spelling check. CLICK IT! Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Comcast, all have spelling check, and if you use Outlook, it will even check your grammar, but that might be asking too much. Just start with spelling names and 90% of words correctly and I will be happier.

2- Now that you have mastered the spell check, let's take it to the next level. Let's talk about knowing what words mean. I know this is tough, but every cell phone sold now except the ones specifically marketed to kids and senior citizens has the internet or text messaging (Send a message to 46645 with "definition" and the word, and you will receive a message with the definition for free, just the cost of a regular text message). Use it to find out what words actually mean. A few favorites are "Ignorant" used as if it means generally a jerk, "Socialist" as a label applied to anyone who voted for a Democrat in any election since 1980 (Sorry, small political jab), "Their" used in place of "They're" or "There" or "Your" versus "You're"(We'll talk more about apostrophes in a moment), and last but not least, "All forms of 'to be' verbs." Is it really that hard to decide whether to use "was" or "were" when referring to what you and several friends did last night? I don't care if you live in Utah or West Virginia, you know in your heart whether it should be "We was" or "We were" and if you simply choose not to speak correctly, well you simply sound ignorant (Okay, that is my last one, and I'll stop using the word ignorant "for realz" now).

3 - Ebonics - I haven't heard this term in a while, but I haven't heard a suitable replacement, so we'll play this one where it lies. Why does every up-and-coming hip-hop icon wanna-be feel the need to brutalize the english language to the point of needing dental records in order to identify it. Now I am not a hip-hop hater, anyone who knows me well knows that my iPod has a decent selection of both old and new school hip hop. I love Snoop, Dre, Kanye, and "all themz," but do we really need to create new words, colloquial or not, to accomodate the declining education standards in the US? I don't think that with our Federal budget defecit and armed forces already stretched thin, we should be sending the message to other nations that we are raising a generation of complete idiots. It is like asking someone to attack us, because can you imagine trying to give missile command orders using this ridiculous excuse for communication? General Whitey; "Where are the missile launch codes?" Private Wigger; "Right thurr..." General Whitey; "Where?" Private Wigger; "Thurr!" General Whitey; "Private, we don't have time for this, could you be a little more specific? The Russians are launching as we speak!" Private Wigger; "Fo shizzle g-dizzle. Themz iz all up in the desk's biz-nass..." BOOM! I hope you see my point. Now I will confess, this is one that I do have a hard time with as I find it amusing, but the truth is much more disturbing - millions of people not only communicate this way, but believe it to be acceptable. This is not just a race issue, although there are racial undertones, the bottom line is that unless you own the Bentleys and Ferraris in your own music videos, your slang and prostituted English should stay in the songs and music videos that tend to give it breath.

4 - Plural forms of words, specifically apostrophes. This is my biggest pet peeve, and sadly, the most common that I have noticed lately. This may come as a shock to some of you (hopefully not) but adding "apostrophe s" to words does not make them plural, in fact it usually makes them wrong. Different words have different plural forms, but as far as I am aware, no word in the English language is made plural by adding an "apostrophe s," but in stead this makes most words possessive. This means that if my blog title were "The Kane's" that it would be singular and possessive, or "the blog belonging to one Kane," or give it the meaning "The Kane IS..." Totally different, and yet no one but me seems bothered by this. If I am incorrect or out of line, feel free to comment, or if you have a question, I would gladly refer you to a few sites, but in the name of all that is holy, STOP USING APOSTROPHEs TO MAKE THINGS PLURAL!!! Especially on websites, printed material, and emails.

If you don't know a word's (possessive, not words - plural) definition or the correct plural form, check Websters or Wikipedia, but unless you want to be called out by an angry British Expatriate (not necessarily me, unless you catch me on a bad day), called out by an English teacher, or maybe beaten to death with the dictionary or thesaurus that you perhaps ought not have considered so trivial or unimportant, take the extra seconds to care for the language - somebody has to.

Disappointed

Let me preface this post by saying that it is related to politics, and is probably not going to be funny or satirical, so if you are 1- Closed minded or 2- Terminally conservative or liberal for that matter, I would discourage you from reading further.

I am not a citizen of the United States of America. I was born in the UK, and am reluctant to denounce the nation in which I was born until I am truly prepared to do so completely. I am, however, passionately patriotic. I love this nation. I believe that the framers of the constitution were guided by God Himself. I minored in political science because I was fascinated by the perfect system of checks and balances. I know the words to all verses of the national anthem and proudly sing them whenever the opportunity arises. I get emotional when I see the troops in harm's way to protect the freedom. Perhaps most disturbingly, I understand more about this nation's political process than the people who can more rightly call this their government.

This nation was born of a small motley band's desire for one thing; a voice. They believed that taxation without representation was condemnable enough to go to war. They valued their voice, their freedom above their own lives, and thousands upon thousands have bled dry to defend that same freedom. One of the greatest representations of this freedom is the political process, and yet millions of us willingly sacrifice our voice through inaction.

People will offer numerous excuses for their lack of engagement in the political process, but the most common (and most disturbing) excuse is "I just don't know enough about the issues." This is an unfortunate dismissal of our most fundamental freedom. The freedom of information is critical to keeping the government in check. The constitution was first amended with "unfettered press" to ensure that whatever the government does, someone is watching. Yet what are we watching? Not the painfully objective journalism of our grandparents' era, but rather the egotistical rantings of self-centered pundits. I will not name any particulars, but it is disturbing when cable news' "most watched program" is not true journalism, but rather an hour long editorial, a platform for spouting propaganda and opinion, driven not by a desire for truth and protection of freedom, but rather by the almighty advertising dollar, and the ratings that drive it.

This is not a condemnation of all news outlets, as many are exceptional and passionately uphold the tenets of the journalistic profession. What is disappointing is the younger population's increasing disinterest and disengagement in the political process. In an age where information is more easily available than in any other time in the nation or even planet's history, to simply excuse one's self from the civic duty to vote due to being uninformed is disgusting and should not be tolerated.

It is time that we as a nation get angry. All of us. Angry about global warming. Angry about deficit spending. Angry about the politicization of the supreme court. Angry about pork barrel politics. Angry about partisan squabbling. Angry about obscene lobbyist influence. Angry about a dilapidated zoo. The list could be infinite, the point is that there is something that most all of us is angry about, or would be if we took the time to learn just a little. This anger is what representative democracy is about. The vehicle to expedite this change has been given us by birthright, but it falls to us to drive this vehicle through participation in the political process.

My hope is that if nothing else, you appreciate the significance of your right to vote, and remember as you pull a lever, mark a card, or touch a screen, that countless people before you fought, bled and died to give you that privilege. Participate in the political process, even if only in a small way. If you did not register to vote in time for this election, register as soon as possible so as not to miss another one, and look forward to when you can vote. I know that I do.

Fall TV

I truly loathe TV producers, just as a battered spouse loathes her abuser.  I know that analogy is pretty tasteless, but here me out -  these people only give you enough "love" (see: story) to keep you coming back until the next episode or season, and then when they have found another more interesting "project," they give you a beating of a finish like the last season of Alias.  J.J Abrams, Adelstein|Prouse, David Eick, and lest we forget the juggernaughts, Bruckheimer and Dick Wolf.  Who are these people?  The abuser-masterminds behind the Hamlet of our day, namely Lost, Prison Break, all seventeen iterations of CSI and Law & Order (set to launch both CSI Topeka and Law & Order; Guantanamo this season), not to mention the sacred Battlestar (sadly in its last season) and all the other dribble that we can't miss this fall.  Shakespeare may seem like a generous comparison for the spinoff prone, product placement whores that punctuate episodes with partial nudity, sexual tension (will Kate pick Sawyer or Jack?!?!), completely implausible insinuations like "someone will die" (but if it's Heroes, will somehow not really die even though he went ka-boom over New York), and nuke-uler timers ticking away at the last moments of this weeks episode, just to hook you for 6 days 23 hours until you can get your next fix.  I admit it.  If I were a crack-head, TV would be my crack, and this next month is like me taking a walk through the ghetto with a wad of twenties.  Another tasteless analogy I know, but that's what my abuser has taught me - humor at the expense of the less fortunate and cliche stereotypes punctuated with a catch-phrase and the removing and replacing of my designer sunglasses... I'm looking at you David Caruso.  All I can say is thank heaven for DVR so I can still see my kids.  

The Worst Candy Idea EVER

Chocolate Skittles sounds like a pretty good idea from the outset. Chocolate? Good. Chewey? Good. The problem is where they went from there. S'mores? Brownie batter? I like Chocolate more than most, and so when I saw a bag of chocolate skittles on "Clearance" (I know now why) fo r$2 i thought "Score." The problem is now I have a pound of candy that my wife and 3-year-old would turn down, and that taste like some sort of high school home-ec experiment.

Maybe I can use them to dress up my flowerbeds...

Dear Skittles;

Next time you think about making a chocolate candy, don't. M&Ms have a 40 year head start on you, and you aren't really that good at it. Just stick with what you know.

Sincerely,

Battlestar Dave

Vacations

I think Americans are getting the shaft when it comes to vacations. I have been with the same company (all said and done) for over 5 years. I get just over 3 weeks of vacation per year, and never in the entire time have I been able to use all that time. Nucking Futs! It's like health care - some "important" benefit that is great to have, until you actually need to use it, at which time the provider finds some vague reason not to cover you.

Usually I just have too much going on at work (or I am too big of a Pansie) to even ask for days off, but when I do, I have to cram so much into the so-called vacation that I need a week of sick time to recover.

My Irish relatives do it right. When they come here on "Holiday" it isn't for a week but rather a month, they don't bring their blackberries or mobiles, they sleep in till at least 11 every day, and they do whatever the hell they want FOR A MONTH!!! They get the urge to see Vegas, they go to Vegas. They get bored with Vegas, they go on to Disneyland, and never once does their employer give them crap about "PTO Blackouts" or the "Department Workflow."

I just had a great family vacation to Monterey, Ca. and realized that this is the first time in almost a decade that I have taken more than 5 days off for a vacation (no, honey, the birth of our kids doesn;t count as a vacation). Some might say that getting laid off with a severance is the same thing as a vacation, but those people deserve to be laid off 2 weeks after finding out that their wife is pregnant. Vacation, my @$$.

A decade... That is just plain sad. My goal from here on out is to take more vacations, and eventually get the minerals to take a month long one. The real issue here is that I still want to be on vacation... I guess that is what retirement is for though eh?

Stupid Cheese

Okay, so we all have moments that we aren't particularly proud of.  Things like Britney Spears and the whole marrying Kevin Federline (or you could even just say the past 24 months), or George W. and appointing Rummy.  I had one of those moments Friday as I was cleaning the kitchen sink.  There was some cheese dried onto the bottom, and I decided to use my fingernail to get it off.  It is amazing how fast and hard that stuff dries.  So instead of gradually coming off, a tiny piece broke off and went under my thumbnail.  Ouch. 

So I cleaned it out and didn't think about it again, and the next morning my whole thumb was achy and huge, and I could barely move it.  Not excruciating, but to put it in perspective I had to shave left handed.  So I called the nurse's hotline and went through her "triage" checklist, and she tells me that because cheese is basically rotten milk, it is teeming with bacteria.  Next, more good news: because I haven't had a tetanus shot in ten years plus, she tells me that I will need to visit my doctor and get jabbed in the arse with a needle almost as big as the chunk of solidified milk bacteria that started this whole thing. 

Moral of the story: let the wife clean the sink. 

Store Hours

So it never ceases to amaze me when we close our store, invariably 2-3 minutes after the posted closing time of 8 pm, that customers always cut it too close and show up around 8:09.  I can understand being late, and being disappointed, especially if they have the same attitude toward punctuality when it comes to paying their bills.  I feel for them because they were ALMOST on time.

On the other hand, I do not feel bad for the people who show up 27 minutes late, slam into the door angrily, pound on the glass with their fist, lean back to look at the posted hours, check their watch (as if to accuse us of closing early), and then yell from outside that they just want to pay a bill, which they usually follow up with an "I can see you in there (like we are hiding)".  I don't know where these people come from, but you can get to my store from pretty much anywhere in the Salt Lake Valley, and even parts of Tooele, in under half an hour, so these people must realize at 7:59 that they need to pay their bills and decide to hop in the car to see if they can warp space and time.  

The best part is that when we refuse to open the door, they invariably storm back to their Dodge truck with the Cummins Turbo Diesel and a 3" lift and burn $20 in diesel and about $7 in rubber to punctuate their angst with Sprint.  Maybe if they were slightly more conservative with the resources required to maintain their transportation, they would have the money to pay their bills on time.

How dare we close our doors at the posted time, honestly!  I think perhaps we would be more compassionate if the people who were coming late weren't the same people who want to argue things like the rate of their city's taxes, or the price of a 411 call - and it's not like they didn't have 45 days to pay their bill BEFORE if got suspended for non-payment... It reminds me of a sign that my High School Algebra teacher had at his desk; "Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." Maybe Mr. Reynolds could come work part time for me holding a sign outside my store from 8:01-8:45 every night.  Probably beats greeting at Wal-Mart... then again it's still retail...

My Mastercard ad...

Three tickets to the zoo; $25.  Two cups of Dippin Dots and a popsicle; $8. Having your three-year old ask you what these monkeys are doing; priceless.  

Next time I go I'm going to ask the zookeeper.  I'll bet they crinkle...

Fold vs Crinkle

Anyone who has known me for a while knows that I have been acccused of being, well, uptight. This only manifests itself in several areas, however none as pronounced as my passionate opposition to crinkling toilet paper. You other folders out there know what I am talking about. You go into the bathroom frantic to get things going and boom, clogged toilet. You panic. All you can see is wad after wad of 10-12 squares of tp with the occasional chocolate chip, and if you are in a public restroom it's even worse since you know the tp they use there is essentially white 20-grit sandpaper that never dissolves, even when immersed in hydrochloric acid.

I digress, the point is that I have a personal life mission to convert as many crinklers as possible to folding. Why? There are just some things that are right no matter what anyone else says. I even got my chronic crinkler wife to give folding a try. She hasn't been converted yet, but as they say in the gay community, experimentation is the first step honey. So I won a major victory this morning. Hilary, when asked by her mother if she wanted the tp folded or crinkled, she chose folded. I have not even brought it up, and she knew in her heart what was right. I know now what people mean when they say it's priceless when your offspring chooses right and truth of their own accord! Hilary, you made my day!

Sacrament Meeting Talks

So why is it that the people who give the worst, most unorganized, pointless sacrament meeting talks are always the ones who go 15 minutes over?  I admit, I may have gone over my recommended time allotment once or twice, but honestly, is your "travelogue" that much more important than the Sunday School lesson that countless teachers have prepared?

Today an older missionary couple reported on their mission to the inner city.  I don't know which inner city, since they never came out and said where they served, other than that it was the "Harvard Ward" so I am guessing that it was Boston.  The sister went first, and didn't say a whole lot, except talk about how the ward was a mess because they had no musical talent there, so that was her call.  Huh... I though it was to proclaim the gospel and bring to pass the immortality of man.  Her husband, on the other hand, had lots of great things to say (the meeting ended 20 minutes late because of all the great things he had to say in fact).  Too bad none of it made sense, or tesitified of the divinity of Jesus Christ.  Seriously, if I have to sit through one more meeting where the speaker or teacher doesn't teach a single gospel principal I am going to become Catholic - at least you only have to go twice a year, and I hear you don't even have to set up or take down chairs either...

Loud Talkers

So I am sitting in my office and all of a sudden I hear the "all-too-common in Sprint Stores" occurrence of what sounds like an angry customer yelling at my employees. I usually try to come out from the back and either take over for the rep for two reasons, one, because I have Brazilian employees who give the irish a run for their money on temper, and two, because people just seem to calm down when they are talking to the "manager." Back to point, this morning as I try to waste the first half of my day, I heard what sounded like a customer who we know to be crazy (she carries a poodle around in a blanket for hell's sake) yelling at my employees, but when I go out front she is simply telling a story at full voice. Why do people think that they need to talk through 2 walls and a 15 minute fire rated security door when telling a story about their kids that no one wants to hear anyway is beyond me. Seriously, you know that the country has problems when crazies on welfare have so much time that they go and bug people who are actually working to fill up their days. I'm moving to Mexico - at least there they know how to work.

See what I mean about her hair?

Wow Jodi, you would think the 4th most popular local news program in Utah would spend a little cash and at least get you a beauty school student to calm down the West Valley bangs...

Utah weather sucks

There is a joke here locally that if you don't like the weather in Utah, you can wait 5 minutes and it will change.  This is funny because it is true, but days like today really drive me crazy.  It was sunny, rainy, overcast, hailed, snowed, and there was a brief plague of locust, all before 5. Days like today make me wish, not only that nike or Sean John would invent adaptive outerwear already, but that Brother Brigham would have said, "Screw this place, lets keep truckin till we hit the coast," and built the new jerusalem closer to San Diego or LA.  Can you imagine if the Mormons got to LA first?  City of angels indeed.  The traffic would be so bad everyone would have to telecommute.  Seriously though, the only thing worse than Utah weather in the spring or fall is Jodi Saeland's hair.  If you watch Fox news one night you will know what I mean.  I think there should be an academy awards of bad hair just so I could nominate her and she could win.  It's not like mullett bad, it's like "has no clue that she looks like an extra from a 90's WB sitcom" bad.  Yeah.  That bad.  Check it out sometime and feel good about yourself.

On an unrelated note, this is my first real post on my own blog.  "yaay..."  you can taste the excitement.