The K-Mart Experience

Going through a checkout at K-Mart is as much fun as doing your income taxes. Had it not been for the sale price of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, I would not have stepped foot in that place. I guess I could have purchased it for less than $15 somewhere else but no one in their right mind goes to K-Mart so I figured it would be pretty empty and the shelves would be full. I was right: no one in their right mind was there and there were plenty of people at K-Mart...

...including the lady with two young screaming kids in the checkout right next to me. You know the one. Her kids are always screaming because they didn't get what they wanted. It turns out that the orange car is not as good as the green car. Apparently toys will jump out of a cart incessantly onto the hard floor as if to jump for their freedom. Perhaps they know what kind of existence they will have in the possession of these two brats, one of which I could not tell was a boy or a girl because of the long curly hair. I actually thought it was a girl until the mother called out the child's name through clinched teeth.

I think K-Mart needs to fire the people who enter prices into their computer because it seems that every time (and I'm not exaggerating one bit) I'm in their checkout line someone needs a price check. It also seems that the length of time it takes to complete the cycle of a price check is equal to the gestation cycle of an elephant give or take a couple days. Today was an especially unique day in that there were three lines open and each lane required some sort of managerial assistance prolonging the agony as I stand there next to the devil's seed in a shopping cart. Management makes a wise decision to open up two more lanes but they are also subject to the same fate as the other three lanes. I would have rather paid an additional $1 at any other store than to suffer through the checkout lines at K-Mart. All will be forgotten when I partake of the widescreen, 5.1 Dolby digital sweetness of the newest addition to my DVD collection.

Caucasian Solar Math

Why do I do this to myself? It happens at least once a year.

Light-skinned white guy + hot sun + time*4 = painful, burning flesh.

Private or Paranoid?

I've realized recently that I'm a private person. I keep certain things to myself and don't like people invading my space. However, I'm realizing that perhaps my private-ness is going a little past private and dangerously close to paranoia. People – normal people, I guess – usually are pretty open about things and about their problems and about what's going on in their lives. Not me. I've always kept my own things to myself and only talk about safe things to other people.

One of the reasons I started this blog is to get some of those things out of my head and out there for people to see. I've talked about some things but everything has been safe: a little humor, a little emotion, a little sarcasm, a little dementia. There are still things up in my melon that I will probably never write or talk about. I can accept that but this has spilled over into other parts of my life and daily routine.

For example, I cannot stand it when people look over my shoulder looking at what I'm doing whether that is writing something down or looking at my computer screen. I don't really have anything to hide when I'm on the computer or if I'm reading or writing something it's just that what I'm doing is my business and not the business of other people. I'm seriously thinking about turning my desk around at work to make it hard for people to look at my monitors but I think that's going a little overboard. Sometimes if someone is coming into my office I'll switch my screen over to the desktop or something pretty generic so they have nothing to look at or start a conversation about. I figure if I want people to know what I'm doing and what I'm working on, I'll tell you.

I visit a few message boards regularly and I try to stay anonymous. In my profiles on these boards I don't put any information about myself. I stick to my username and that's it. I don't want people finding out anything about me. One time I wanted to flame someone on a board so I registered a new username and flamed him. I was still worried I'd be tracked down. Recently, I've been a little more open on message boards. I'll post my city, my instant messenger screen name, and sometimes a link to my web site.

I think I'm getting a little better about not being so private about myself but I think I was close to being paranoid that people were going to find about me and the inner stuff of my life. I'm still having a hard time with keeping some thoughts to myself and not talking to people about them. If I weren't so paranoid I'd probably write some of that stuff on here but I've chosen to make this public so I probably never will. The dilemma lives on. Am I just a private person or am I paranoid?

The TV Vent Shaft

Why is it that every time someone crawls through a ventilation shaft on television they fall through the ceiling? I would think by now that people on TV would have figured this out. If I'm ever tempted to crawl through a ventilation shaft I'm going to say to myself, “No way, they're not designed to support a human being, although they're the ideal dimensions for someone to crawl through.” Why are they always so clean, anyway?

Modem Constipation

Ah, gotta love broadband! My DSL is back up and running and not a moment too soon. Three days of dial-up is about as much as I can stand in one lifetime. I hope I never have to go back. It reminds me of when I was at King's Island with my girlfriend back in high school. We were in line for a roller coaster standing behind two guys in tight, short shorts who apparently were "differently-oriented" in a "together" sort of way. Insert your own euphemism here. It became apparent they were gay when they started talking about a hot girl walking by. The conversation went something like this...

"Oooo. She's nice. Don't you think she's hot?"

"Yeah, she's hot. [pause] Sometimes I look at someone like that and wish I could turn back. Don't you think about it sometimes?"

"Sometimes I do but I know I can't go back."

Uh, ewwww. All that to say now that I'm on broadband I'll never switch back to dial-up. Not that there's anything wrong with it. (get it, Seinfeld fans?) I can't go back. I just can't do it.

Allow me to compare my experience over the last few days to an old man on a fiber diet. Everyday the man gets his fiber, greases the pipes, and drops his boys off at the pool with lightning speed. It's all good. Then, his wife decides to buy a pack of cigarettes instead of his Colon Blow cereal and now he's backed up like Manhattan during rush hour. I've just endured modem constipation for three days and now I'm all greased up and good to go.

Dial-up Sux0rs

This sux! My DSL modem is broke and I'm stuck on dial-up at home until they send me a new modem.

Don't know what you got till it's gone
Don't know what it is I did so wrong
Now I know what I got
It's just this song
And it ain't easy to get back
Takes so long

If anyone can tell me exactly what "sux0rs" means, I'd appreciate it.

The Worst Lunch Ever

Today was probably the worst lunch experience for me (other than school lunches in junior high when they give you cardboard French fries and a tasteless burger with plastic cheese which, incidentally, sticks to the ceiling of a lunch room for a long time if you throw it just right).

Normally during the summer I go home for lunch because there usually is something there to eat and my family is there so I like to spend time with them when I can. At around 11:30 this morning I talked to my wife on the phone and she informed me she was going to be shopping over the lunch hour and was going to get lunch while she was out. This gives me a chance to go out and get something a little extra special for lunch because I don't feel obligated to go home. So, I've got my pick of any restaurant and fast food joint in the area. It's 11:30 so I've got plenty of time to make my choice and it has to be a good one because this doesn't happen very often.

I don't mind eating out by myself but I'd rather go out to lunch with someone so I start looking around for potential candidates for my lunch-time field trip. Unfortunately, all my co-workers are out somewhere so none of them are available. I travel next door where Tony works and see what he's up to. Nada. Tony's busy and has to leave. No one else that I could think of is around so I'm all alone. But that's ok because at this point it's only noon so I've got plenty of time to figure out what I want to do.

My dilemma now is to decide if I want to sit alone in a restaurant or pick something up and bring it back to my office. I opt for the pick-up because a restaurant would take too long and I'd have to leave a tip. The only thing worse than eating by yourself in a restaurant is paying $10 for a $6 meal and wasting an hour finding things to look at.

I've pretty much ruled out fast food because 1) I was looking for something a little more fancy, 2) I'm not in a hurry, and 3) fast food just sux sometimes. I'll save the fast food for when it's really necessary to have fast food. So, I'm down to a nice place where I can pick something up and bring it back to my office. That should be easy because I have plenty of time.

Chinese? Well, ever since the local Chinese take-out place has been under new management, I've been afraid to go there. Plus, I wasn't in the mood for Chinese. Soup/Salad/Sandwich sounds good but there aren't really any places like that around here for take out. I'd have to travel to Scranton or Dickson City and that's too far away and I'd have to sit down… but it was tempting. I'd have to think about that one. Stromboli/Calzone? Wasn't in the mood for one of those. I really had my heart set on a sandwich and some soup. Hoagie? Had a hoagie yesterday.

I didn't have any options left. I didn't want fast food. I didn't want to sit down. I wanted something nice because it was one of the few times I could treat myself like this. By this time it was 12:30 and most every normal, working American either had already made plans for lunch or was happily digesting it. I was alone in my hungered grief.

Then, I thought maybe I should get in my car and drive and then it would come to me like an epiphany as I drive by the restaurants. The only problem with this plan is that I wouldn't be able to do a call-in-pick-up. I was so desperate at this point that I was willing to risk that and possibly have to do the sit-down-$10-stare-at-stuff meal. Onward I drive on my lunch-time quest.

I position myself on the one side of town so I can easily drive to the other end scoping out food joints intentionally looking past anything that had value meals or a $1 or under section of the menu. Nothing. At the other end was my bank so I pulled in to get some cash so I feel like I actually accomplished something by driving through town. I thought maybe the ATM would reveal my destination. The ATM was silent except for the phony electro-British accent instructing me on my transaction. Time to drive back through town. Almost 1:00. Yikes. I didn't want to arrive back at my office with a cheap sack half filled with food that altogether cost less than $3 and the filled the rest of the way with complimentary napkins but that might be my only choice.

My lunch was pretty much the exact opposite of what I wanted it to be. I actually went through the Wendy's drive thru to get a bowl of chili and some fries AND to Burger King to get a cheeseburger. I wasted all this time I might as well make the best out of it. I arrived at my office with two sacks o' crap and a 20 oz. Pepsi that I got in the machine next door. How sad is that? This was the worst lunch ever.

The world could be a better place...

Life would be much easier if people think the way I think. If people shared my views, opinions, and beliefs this world would be a much better place and people would get along a little bit better. Then again, who would I have to argue with?