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?