In their natural form, vermicious knids are huge, dark, egg-shaped beings that are quite at home in the vacuum of space. Their homeworld is the planet Vermes, a fictional planet located (as stated in dialogue) 184270000000 miles away from Earth. Their one weak point is that they are show-offs; they cannot resist shaping themselves to spell the one word they know how to spell–SCRAM–before they attack.
According to Willy Wonka, numerous sentient alien species that formerly existed have been wiped out by the knids’ predations. Wonka claims that the only reason humans have escaped this fate is because the Knids cannot enter Earth’s atmosphere without being burned up by friction—despite the fact that among the worlds that have been depopulated by the knids is Venus, which has a substantial atmosphere.
Ok, the 2 are not mutually exclusive but for the sake of argument I’ll separate them for a minute. What a day at work today. I’ve forgotten that it usually takes me about a month or so to make the transition from redneck land to stick up their ass tourist land. I’m convinced only of 2 things. First, 99% of people have apparently never worked in the service industry and have never learned proper…fuck proper…how bout they have just never learned how to be pleasant people. Second, there are only a FEW select people who should do things themselves and there are only a FEW select things those people should ever attempt to do. No, I’m sorry I am not going to tell you that it’s OK to put deck sealer on your roof becuase it’s cheaper than new shingles! Sorry, dweeb, I’m not willing to guarantee this product is going to work if you are TOO FUCKING LAZY and CHEEP to follow the fucking directions and do the job right.
Dad, you’ll like this: From my childhood there is one lesson you taught me at the top of your lungs over the screaming lawnmower and it was a comment you only ever had to say forcefully to me once (although you repeated it many other times throughout my life in various circumstances): If you AREN’T going to do the job RIGHT, than DON’T do it at all!! Certianly your job as a parent was to instill the value of responsibility for doing something well and having a successful end result. It was not exactly something a kid wanted to hear whilst trying to maneuver an out of control self propelled machine that certainly was bigger than me at top speed through loose sand. You made your point and I learned a lesson, that lesson being: when you cut corners you set yourself up for failure. Academics aside, it is a lesson I took into adulthood by becoming a careful and deliberate person in my professional life. I don’t cut corners, my actions are deliberate and planned, and I am successful. There is a reason for everything I do and for everything I say. It is a value I try to impart on my employees and it is something that I must very carefully, everyday, try to impart on customers who come in to my department. “If you are not going to do it right (you lazy fucking redneck), don’t waste your time, try this product instead, it doesn’t require as much work or preparation (I’d love to watch you fail miserably at your project becuase it’s funny but I really don’t want to listen to you when you come back and bitch at me for selling you something you couldn’t figure out how to use becuase you couldn’t be bothered to read the fucking directions).”
On to Babies. When the hell did the baby market explode and why was I not around to make any money on this? I spent several hours tonight looking at some of the plastic baby items that Sarah is going to be getting (or has already received) for her baby shower. Notice the inserted word “plastic”. You know, the huge metal Tonka Trucks that were just fine when I was a kid, why did they switch to plastic? Why are Lincoln Logs now plastic? What happened to Tinker Toys and Light Bright? Why are there batteries in the Etch-A-Sketch? What the hell is a Diaper Genie? Somewhere between 1974 and 2008, Johnny Jumpup become the “Graco Jumpster in Jungle Jubilation”, a wholly unnecessary sentence to describe a pair of oversize shorts sewn on to a couple long elastic straps that provide hours of entertainment to small children who secretly wish to fly. Well Sarah, that’s what your getting for your shower from me. Check your email, I sent you a note about when you’ll get it.
So now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is another day in do it yourself land.
I don’t post much in the way of political punches on this blog but since it pertains to my life I had to post this. Even talking head Bill O’Reilly can’t get a cohesive answer out of the opponents for gay marriage equality. Good for him for pushing the dingle-berry on his show for a better answer. “Because” just isn’t good enough if you want to outright ban something or write it into the constitution. ESPECIALLY in California where gay marriage is now legal. It’s going to take one hell of an argument to persuade one of the most liberal states in the country to back down from the court’s ruling on this. Watch this video.
I’m a lush for technology. OK, more like I just enjoy spending my money. There were a couple of important items that I lost in the “divorce” so today I went out and purchased them. My paychecks seem to be getting bigger and bigger at the moment so I figured I would take advantage of it before the $4.35/gal gas prices actually started sinking in!! Today I purcahsed a new “all-in-one” printer, scanner, copier at Best Buy. I need to have a printer and I have been looking at the multi function units for quite a while. Today I got the HPC4385 all in one unit and I love it. I’ve spent the last 45 minutes scanning pictures (see below) and it is SOOOOOO much quicker than the hand-me-down scanner I got from dad (thanks though). I also picked up another wireless router since Jirar will be taking the one we have (not much cost involved there).
I’m off now for the long weekend. I have 3 days off!!!! Amazing. Things are getting to crunch time now. I’ve got “the letter” prepared for the landlord and ready to be sent off on the first of June explaining the situation and the fact that I’ll be moving. I’m nearly decided on a storage unit to put all this shit and with the exception of my school loan, I’m nearly debt free (I still have a credit card out there that I’m paying on). Things are looking good for me right now and I’m pretty happy about that. Getting out of this house though is the biggest challenge in front of me. There is just so much to do and I have just so little time to do it. I’ll get there.
I’ll leave you tonight with a picture from my childhood. Sarah, I don’t know what is going through your head here but wow, clearly your son (though me) will have easy access to LOTS of embarrassing pictures of his mother and his grandmother!!!!! Good thing you live in Iowa. You want to bet that by the time he’s 3, he will know how to use a mouse and will know more about technology than you and Brain??? I think I was a senior in high school before I mastered a mouse!! Love ya.
Well it’s been a little while since I’ve written. What can I say, this is the busy season at work right now. OK, I’ve also had the house to myself and have had nothing to bitch about on that front. Anyhow, I was explaining to an old friend today that we’ve made the transition from red-neck-ville to I’m-better-than-you-ville. Believe it or not, I like the second one better than the first. Finally, people shopping who wear all their clothes and who have all their teeth. They snap, whistle, and whip hostilities through the air but at least I can’t smell them coming a mile away!!! I’ll trade arragonce for meth-head stupidity any day. To say the last work has been CRAZY busy. Sad thing is, it’s only 3/4 as busy as it was this time last year. With gas now at a whopping $4.12 a gallon out here in Leelanau, NOBODY is going anywhere unless they have to. I spend a good 1/3 of my day on the phone with people who are price shopping becuase they only want to drive to one place to get their shit. You know, I hate gas prices too but Jesus Christ, I don’t sit at home all day and make phone calls to plan my shopping visits. I don’t know, I, being a good little consumer, just know where to shop and how to shop. Guess that comes from working in retail. Maybe it comes from being gay.
The personal life has been interesting lately. Seems I’ve been the only one lately with his shit together. Whether it’s regarding money or regarding what to do with my life, I got it going on right now and I’m pretty darn happy with my life. I’m not real happy with some of the things that have gone on in the past year but you know what, I’ll survive and I’ll get over my sorrow about some of the things and people I’ve lost and I’ll move on. There is a HUGE difference in how I am dealing with this vs. how I might have dealt with it 10 years ago. I’m a much happier person now than I was then. I’m also much more sure of myself and my position in life. I guess that comes with age. I had my “mid-life” crisis when I was in my early 20’s. I got it out of the way really fucking early. I’m glad too becuase it’s a LOT easier to enjoy life when you are not carrying around so much fucking angst.
OK, that’s it for now. I’ve got to get some other things done tonight. I’ll leave you with another random picture.
The following has been stolen from Wally’s Joke Mail and reposted here without permission. I did not write these but I’m not sure Wally did either since I’ve seen these same things posted elsewhere. Pay attention to the highlighted ones. These are statements I find particularly disturbing and true in my neck of the woods. Traverse City is not by definition a conservative area in the same way that Grand Rapids is but some of the back woods boys up here would sure like you to believe it’s all about American Flags and guns!
1. You have to be against abortion, but support capital punishment on demand.
2. You have to believe that governments create oppression and businesses create prosperity.
3. You have to believe that the man wearing a turban in the airport is more of a terrorist than the white man carrying a concealed gun.
4. You have to believe that federal funding is a handout and that disadvantaged people should be able to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” just like you and your daddy and his daddy before him. 5. You have to believe that someone made up global warming to scare you into not driving that gas-guzzling SUV.
6. You have to believe that being sexually confused is an abomination that God hates.
7. You have to believe that the people advocating those afflicted with AIDS should “stop whining.”
8. You have to believe that if schools don’t provide sex education and/or condoms, then kids just won’t think about sex and it will all just go away. 9. You have to believe that animal rights activists aren’t doing “what God intended,” but hunters are.
10. You have to believe that if someone has fallen on hard times it is their own fault and they should be given no help.
11. You have to believe that God lives in your own little box and that He hates all the same things and people you do.
12. You have to believe that the ACLU is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the NRA is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
13. You have to believe that the tax on your yacht is too high and that the homeless man isn’t being taxed enough.
14. You have to believe that the contributions to American history made by Caucasian men are more important than those made by women and African-Americans.
15. You have to believe that Black History Month is reverse racism, but the Confederate flag is just a historical symbol.
16. You have to believe that any war we fight is for a good reason, because the president said so. 17. You have to believe that God loves everyone, except for gay people.
18. You have to believe that this message is part of a crazy, left-wing revolution.
Some people are just irritating. Others are just plain stupid.
The population is beginning to change now up here for the summer. Today I pulled into The Coffee Bean to grab a cup of coffee on my way home from work and I had to park next to what I think was the BIGGEST SUV I’ve ever seen in my life. It was the size of a small school bus, it was BRIGHT white (I hate white cars) and it was clearly driven by someone who cares nothing about how that vehicle makes them look when gas is now at $4.00 a gallon up here. I would venture to say that the owner of that car has been made rich by the stupidity of others and is now showing off his ego. The only thing missing from this truck was a set of bulls balls for the hitch. (I don’t know who the woman is below, this is just to show you what bulls balls are).
Summer time up here brings with it some pretty crazy people. Some even more so than the back woods meth-heads that populate the area in the winter. These people have money, love to show it off, and care about nobody but themselves. To the locals these people who come up here only on the weekends and then somehow think they live here are known as Fudgies…a horrendously bad nickname in the first place. These are the folks who whistle at me at work in order to try and get my attention to help them. Guess what folks, I don’t stop for people who whistle at me. I’ll loose a sale before I am treated like that. I’m not a dog, I don’t have a tail. If you want to treat me like you would a dog than you had better have a treat for me in that fucking bag of yours or I’m going to jump on you, bite you and give you rabies you stupid fucks. Pardon me, will you help me?.. works much better.
