Month: November 2003

I don’t normally do a blog entry to totally rip on a story I saw on the news, but I’m going to make an exception this time. This is one of those stories that you can’t help but read and have the overwhelming feeling to just… well, laugh your ass off at.

ORANGE CITY, Fla. – A mob of shoppers rushing for a sale on DVD players trampled the first woman in line and knocked her unconscious as they scrambled for the shelves at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Patricia VanLester had her eye on a $29 DVD player, but when the siren blared at 6 a.m. Friday announcing the start to the post-Thanksgiving sale, the 41-year-old was knocked to the ground by the frenzy of shoppers behind her.

“She got pushed down, and they walked over her like a herd of elephants,” said VanLester’s sister, Linda Ellzey. “I told them, `Stop stepping on my sister! She’s on the ground!'”
Ellzey said some shoppers tried to help VanLester, and one employee helped Ellzey reach her sister, but most people just continued their rush for deals. “All they cared about was a stupid DVD player,” she said Saturday.

Paramedics called to the store found VanLester unconscious on top of a DVD player, surrounded by shoppers seemingly oblivious to her, said Mark O’Keefe, a spokesman for EVAC Ambulance.
Ellzey said Wal-Mart officials called later Friday to ask about her sister, and the store apologized and offered to put a DVD player on hold for her.

Wal-Mart Stores spokeswoman Karen Burk said she had never heard of a such a melee during a sale. “We are very disappointed this happened,” Burk said. “We want her to come back as a shopper.”

They found her on top of a DVD player unconscious… so she got one. She might spend the rest of the year in the hospital and in traction, but damn, she got her $30 DVD Player. I don’t know the legalities involved here, but I’m assuming that there will be a lawsuit, and all I can say is good. Wal-Mart isn’t doing too much here to kiss ass. The lady gets trampled and the best they can do is put a fucking DVD player on layaway for her? I would at least give her the player and a few movies to boot just to try and do a little damage control. Actually I’d give her some football gear and invite her back next year. Suck it up and train the year and come back next year and don’t fucking fall.

As long as I’m here I might as well bitch about some other stuff now. Let’s see, what’s pissing me off today? The weather, no… that is actually pretty decent for this time of year. I know, I’ll bitch at Stephanie. I’m sure many of you know of Stephanie, although you ignore her like the fucking plague. In a lack of my own better judgment about four years ago I downloaded Weatherbug for my computer. I deleted it shortly after because I didn’t like it that much. However, much like a jilted woman who just can’t seem to let go, Stephanie keeps emailing me shit from Weatherbug at least once a week. I keep telling Stephanie that I don’t want any of her shit anymore but she doesn’t seem to get the message. It’s getting so bad that I’m almost ready to introduce her to Scott Peterson.

It’s over, finally. Turkey day has come and went for another year. I guess you can’t go wrong with Thanksgiving. There is the turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, the occasional dumb ass who burns his garage down with a turkey fryer. As I was searching the Internet for that story I found another Thanksgiving related story about an eating contest. Sonya Thomas of Alexandria, Virginia, devoured massive helpings of yams, green beans, cranberry sauce and turducken, a turkey stuffed with duck, chicken and sausage, to win the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) event. “You need four things” to participate in this sport, said Booker before the contest. “Capacity, strategy, mental toughness and stamina.” Well I’ll be damned, here I always thought I was fat before, but it turns out I was a fucking athlete.

For whatever fucking reason, I woke up at 4am yesterday. As much as I tried I couldn’t fall back asleep for anything, so I stayed up. I saw the Washlet on a commercial, which is a toilet with a heated seat that sprays your ass with water to clean it, and it has a remote control on it. It sounds pretty cool except it costs more than my first car did.

The weatherman had predicted we would get flurries overnight but when I looked outside we had gotten three inches of fucking flurries. It looked light and fluffy but it was snowman/heart attack snow if I ever saw it. I got most of it cleaned up but I had to get the big dog out of the garage to clean the end of the driveway out. As I was coming back up there was a garden hose buried under some of the snow, and yep, you guessed it, the motherfucker wrapped around the auger. After all the fun and excitement it was time to get showered and dressed and get out to the Turkey parties. I was out of the house until 9pm and when I did get home I realized there was no way in hell I wanted to be on the computer, so I went to bed.

Today I had to work, which in case you haven’t learned in the last year and a half, it sucks. I got there at 8, and within the half hour I ended up having to drive to a neighboring store and pick up a couple cases of salmon for an ad. That’s OK, except the closest neighboring store is 50 miles away. I was out of the store from 8:30 until 11 doing that, and I added another 100 miles onto my car. The good thing is I stayed punched in while I did it and I will get reimbursed for mileage, which I believe is at 36 cents a mile. I am glad I wasn’t one of the idiots that were out shopping at Walmart or somewhere like that this morning. I didn’t even drive by Walmart on my way to work today. I said 5 hour sale? Fuck that.

Hey, only two more days to go until Thanksgiving. What are you having for Thanksgiving? How about some Turkey and Gravy Soda? I saw a new product manufactured by Jones Soda that has actually sold out. Let’s get this straight. This company made a soda that tastes like turkey and gravy… and fuckers are actually buying it and drinking it? No question, people are that stupid. Oh well, to each their own I guess. All I know is I won’t be drinking my Turkey dinner on Thursday. Hey, look on the bright side, work another day, get a day off, work another day, get two off. I wish every week could be like that. Then life would be grand.

I was scouring the news and I finally found some good news in all the bullshit. The resurrection of Family Guy. As many as 35 new episodes could premiere in January 2005, according to the Fox spokesperson, which would mark the first time a canceled series has been revived on the strength of its DVD sales and syndication ratings. A DVD set released in April of the show’s first 28 episodes has sold close to 1 million copies while a second collection of 22 episodes has already passed the 500,000 mark. Reruns of the show also rank number one among adult viewers on Cartoon Network. That is fucking great as far as I’m concerned. There is talk of doing a straight to DVD movie and then launch into a new series in 2005. Finally something to look forward to.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, well if that’s the case, then in this one all the words are FUCK. This picture was about 10 am today, and the big snow hasn’t even shown up yet. We are talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 inches or so. That’s great if you’re one of those fuckers who likes snow and winter, but if you’re like me, it sucks. The kicker is that it will get windy today and tonight as well, and why wouldn’t it? After all, we are in Wisconsin, aren’t we? If you’ll notice, the picture was taken through the window and that is a screen in the shot. Why would I take the picture through the window? Because it’s too fucking cold to go outside, didn’t we cover this shit already?

On a more positive note, before the bullshit weather showed up, I went out to my local record store and bought Triumph’s CD called Come Poop With Me. If you’ve never seen Triumph, then you’ve never stayed up past your local news. Triumph is a foul-mouthed hand puppet that insults other people for laughs… Hey, why didn’t I think of that? I’ve got the cynical attitude and foul mouth of Triumph already, I just used to use my friends to relay my insults to others instead of a puppet. In any event, this is a pretty nasty album that you wouldn’t want your kids to hear, with such great songs as Cats are Cunts and Benji’s Queer. There is also a DVD along with the CD which has some of the live stuff that is on the CD. There are interviews with the Dell guy, Jared from Subway and a few others on there. The song I Keed has already been getting video play on MTV.

That has got to be the scariest mugshot picture I’ve ever seen. Did you see the Michael Jackson mugshot picture? I thought they accidentally arrested Bubbles the Chimp at first. I think he melted a little bit with the flash of the camera. I can’t see how a kid would stay overnight at that house without some Rohypnol put into his Kool Aid. The thing that really pisses me off is that this is dominating the news. George Bush is over in England making those people realize that David Blaine wasn’t so bad after all, and all I’m seeing on the news is Michael touched another kids’ penis. Where the fuck have you been for the last 10 years? Instead of putting him in prison then, you left him out to molest more boys and make more shitty music that no one wanted to hear anyway. It’s called quit while you’re ahead. Like I said, this is dominating the news, and we don’t need to hear about it anymore. You know Dateline and Fox and all the other dumbasses that had interviewed him in the past are going to be rerunning all this shit looking for clues etc… to get ratings for their shows. Who the hell can be happy about all this coverage. Nobody that’s who. Well, actually there is one person that is probably a little happy about all this. Kobe Bryant. He’s going, whew, at least I fucked a 19-year-old GIRL. Not looking so bad now, is it?

Hey, tomorrow is Friday, finally. Our weather has been awesome the last few days. We have only been in the mid 50’s but considering that it is fucking November that is pretty sweet. Unfortunately, reality has to rear its ugly little head tomorrow and we are going to snap back into highs in the 30’s with snow and typical shitty ass winter in Wisconsin weather. It sucks, it really does. Anytime you have to deal with snow it sucks. It doesn’t suck as much as if it snowed in July, but trust me, it sucks. If you don’t believe me then move here. Give it a winter and tell me how much you like it. Sometimes in the winter it gets to -40. That’s a fucking minus sign there, and yes, it’s been colder. When it gets cold enough that you have to start counting backwards, it’s time to fucking move. When you could die because you are outside, that’s Wisconsin.

Michael, Michael, Michael. Now what did you do? Sixty to seventy investigators have raided the Neverland Ranch looking for something. I think they just wanted to go on all the rides. What better way to ride all the rides than claim you’re “investigating” them. My favorite part of this is that the news bastards have no idea what the hell is really going on so they have to put all this filler in their stories for the time being. Who the fuck doesn’t know that Michael Jackson had a hit album “Thriller”? If they don’t know that, then they probably don’t give two shits about him being investigated. Actually I knew that and I don’t give two shits that he is being investigated. Why is this getting all the attention anyway? Aren’t there two high profile murder trials going on right now? There’s those sniper assholes on the East Coast, then there’s that Peterson fucker on the West Coast. If the idiots in the media have to cover something, then why not this shit instead of Jackson. What did he do now, molest some young boys? There’s a fucking shock, but I already heard the story 10 years ago. Just make him a Catholic Priest and let’s move on.

Anyway… I guess I haven’t posted an Atkin’s update for a while. I am officially down 104 pounds and my waist is 15″ smaller than when I started exactly nine months ago today. People have asked me what I’m going to do this next week with Thanksgiving coming up and I tell them I’m going to eat some fucking turkey and stuffing. I’ll probably have some mashed potatoes and gravy too. Hell, I might even have a slice of pumpkin pie. Why? Because I can. Although I do believe that carbs are somewhat bad for you, I don’t think you have to live your entire life without them. Once in a while you can have a little extra. No I won’t eat until I puke, but I will enjoy a sampling of foods that I don’t normally eat. It’s not the potatoes and gravy that will make you fat. It’s the bag of Snickers, or bag of Peanut Butter cups that you eat while you watch a TV show, or the box of Chips Ahoy or the…fuck it, you get the picture. I do plan on sticking with Atkins and doing the second and third stages and slowly introduce different carbs into the mix, but I have a very strong willpower to succeed and keep going. The one thing that does stick in my mind is that I’ve been down this road before back in 93, but there is one thing different. I didn’t do that on my own, I had help and support. I tried to lose weight because I was paying money to do so, and I had to go get weighed and measured every week so there were consequences. This time it’s all on me. I make the decisions and yes, I am in control.

I’m going to stop talking now before I turn into one of those lame ass infomercials you see at 3am when your dog wakes you up and you can’t go back to sleep.

I did a little more setting up of Christmas at work today. This time it was toys. It seems that this week was a pain in the ass as you would know if you read my bitch fest from Tuesday. A couple things have happened since the last time I was here that I must address.

The condom in the clam chowder story. I’m glad I’m on the Atkins diet and don’t have to worry about all this shit. First that lady found a tooth in the chicken noodle soup and now this lady finds a condom in her clam chowder. You don’t have that problem with a fucking steak. Hey, maybe it wasn’t really clam chowder after all. What if it was just a big pot of jizz? I don’t know how emotionally unstable the lady that found this is, but it said she spent the next 15 minutes in a restroom, vomiting, and has since seen a psychiatrist and taken medication for depression and anxiety. OK, I can see the vomiting part, but how fucked up are you that you suffer depression and anxiety from this? What’s so depressing, has she not been laid in so long that it was a subtle slap in the face? She takes drugs now to cope, and when she goes to her local Walgreen’s to get her prescription she has to stand next to the condom section to pick it up… now that’s funny.

What the fuck is up with this Hepatitis breakout in Pittsburgh? 500 people that ate at a Chi-Chi’s are sick, and three have died already? It said they ate there back in October, which is shocking to me, because I have a hard enough time remembering what I ate last week, let along where, and a month ago, forget it. They seem to think the source of this outbreak is from scallions, which also infected about 280 people in Georgia back in September. What the fuck is up with the scallions? How did a scallion get Hepatitis anyway, did it come from Pamela Anderson’s garden? Getting a serious disease from eating out kind of defeats the purpose of going out. Fuck, I’d rather find a condom in my soup.

I made it through Monday after my three day weekend. Monday is usually a bitch, but this time it seemed to be OK… You know, I’ve been writing all this time and haven’t been complaining about anything yet. I think it’s time to start bitching.

Walked into work today and realized that my 24′ of toys were going to be condensed down to 8’…TODAY! I was so glad that nobody let me know this shit in advance because it made my fucking day. That of course means that the shit that I wanted to do didn’t get done, and now tomorrow my early day is fucked as well. The check will be bigger at the end of the week, but I’m in bitch mode so there will be no positive twists on this bullshit. We have a shipper of puzzles coming in and all that the people that ordered them can tell us is that we are going to get 6 free decks of cards with our shipper, and that’s 100% profit. Well big fucking deal, I’m going to make $18 extra, that is if I sell the fucking things. This is just a sampling of the stupidity my company shows every day. I can’t go into detail of their total stupidity because I don’t have that kind of time on my hands.

As long as we’re on the subject of stupidity, there was a lady that came into the store today and wired $10,000 to Canada to some Evangelical bullshit. What in the fuck is that about? What the hell am I doing wasting away in retail when I could be scamming stupid people out of their money? I can think of several things to do with that kind of money, and I don’t think it would have anything to do with religion, although they wouldn’t have to know that. I really can’t figure out why some people are so fucking stupid to believe bullshit stories like that and send money to such obvious scams. Let’s clear up one thing right now. Jesus does not need your money – period. Religion is supposed to be free, but it is ran by man, and like everything else ran by man, it’s corrupt, so let me repeat. Jesus DOES NOT need your MONEY!!!!!!!!!!! End of story.

I saw it last night. I watched Matrix Revolutions. I liked it and am looking forward to the trilogy being released on DVD because I can guarantee that I will buy it. All I’ve heard about the movie is bitching so far. Quit bitching, that’s my job. Like I said I liked it, and for the most part I got it. I wouldn’t say what I wanted to happen in the movie happened, but its not like I got pissed about it or anything. I will admit that at the end of the movie I had some thoughts in my head that I still am wondering about today. The Matrix is a huge franchise, almost like my generations Star Trek – pop culture wise. This puts Keanu Reeves in a pretty high position, which got me to thinking about something. I wonder how Alex Winter feels about all this. Do you know who Alex is? Way back in the old days there was a movie called Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It was an OK movie which had these two kids going back in time in a phone booth. They were Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves). Now as you know, Keanu’s career has gone this far, hell he’s Neo in The Matrix Trilogy. Alex on the other hand has disappeared, perhaps working the drive up window at Arby’s talking to the Oven Mitt wondering why it doesn’t talk back like in the commercials. I’ve always wondered what happens to these people, wondering if Alex watches the Matrix and whenever Keanu does something cool if he goes “Excellent Ted” and does that air guitar motion, then cry himself to sleep. These are the kind of things I think about when I’m taking a shit and the light bulb in the bathroom burns out.

On a more positive note, I did finish my 3rd Bass page Friday. I went to Eau Claire Friday afternoon and visited some friends and saw the new Matrix as I’m sure you’ve figured out if you made it this far. Tonight I’m just lounging and thinking about getting some much needed sleep for my next task. Fishing. The wonder pond has roughly an inch of ice on it and I need to break that sun of a bitch open tomorrow and retrieve the living fish. I can’t wait for that shit.

Hey, guess what tomorrow is? It’s Friday for me. I get a three day weekend coming up because I had to waste away my Sunday all day. I guess it all works out in the end. Monday was a pretty good day, at least the first half. Yesterday I had some lady looking for regular Pringles, and when I showed them too her, there was a Lords of the Ring contest on them. I gave her the can and told her they were the original flavor, then as she’s walking away she goes, I hope your right. Well what in the fuck else would they be? They say Original right on the damn can don’t they? What the hell was she thinking, that she’d get them home and they’d be Lord of the Rings flavored? Some people just piss you off.

Yesterday was another fun day, I got to set up Christmas at work Tuesday. Considering that I don’t have all of my stuff in yet, I set up about half of it so far. The remaining stuff should end up coming in tomorrow, although it will sit there until Monday because I won’t have time to fuck with it tomorrow.

The Matrix Revolutions opened today and I can’t wait to see it. I’ve heard mixed reviews so far, but reviews are opinions, and opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. If anyone knows that, I should. I will be going to the theater soon hopefully to watch it and I’m sure I’ll either bitch about it or praise it. I’m still working on my 3rd Bass pages, which explains the lack of attention I’ve been paying to this site. With my Friday off, I’m hoping to finish it up and get it all uploaded.

It sure feels like Monday today. Why do you ask? Because I had to work today. If you’re in retail like me, today was the dreaded “I” word. Inventory. I was at work from 7 this morning until 4pm. I didn’t take a lunch today either, so that means I have 9 hours in already this week. I only need to work 31 more hours this week to hit my 40. It wasn’t as bad as it probably could have been, but it was still a weekend killer. That brings me to my compensation. I now need to take a day off of work. Let’s see. I can’t take Monday or Thursday off because I have loads on those days, Tuesday and some of Wednesday I will be setting up Christmas. I guess that only leaves one day doesn’t it? Yep, you know it, I’m going to take off Friday this week and enjoy a three day weekend. Why? Why the fuck not?

I was watching TV tonight and saw a commercial for 10-10-987 or some shit. I noticed that the guy pitching it is the guy from Full House. Now granted that really isn’t a big step down going from that shitty show to pitching some shitty telephone service, but come on. The Olsen Twins are some big ass (although half assed) actresses worth a lot and poor Uncle Jesse is stuck pitching cheap phone service to Middle America. The Olsen Twins have their own cartoon. Where is Uncle Jesse’s cartoon, his movies, his millions? I don’t believe I’ve seen the Uncle Jesse action figure selling in the stores yet either. The poor man is on the level of Carrot Top pitching phone services. Actually I think in terms of popularity he is a few notches lower than the Carrot. Oh wait, I almost forgot. He gets to fuck Rebecca Romijn-Stamos whenever he wants to. I’m going to go call someone using 10-10-987 now…