Month: December 2004

You know what the greatest thing is about this time of year? You can scapegoat on any real responsibilities in this type of field by throwing together a year in review. That’s right, nothing new, just a rehash of shit that you haven’t seen for almost 12 months and therefore you will get that almost new feel mixed with a little bit of nostalgia. Well I’m not going to do a top ten, because every other asshole out there is doing a top ten. I’m going to do a top twelve of my past blogs starting with January 2004. These are not ranked in any order of greatness, just in order of the months. Enjoy…

January 27, 2004
Fuck Mars, I’d rather have a Snickers
Well, it finally showed up. We must have gotten at least 7″ of snow yesterday and last night. That’s nowhere near as bad as first predicted though. It started out that we were looking at upwards of 12″, so I guess what we got is better than that. The only thing that really sucks is that I still have to drive in the shit. Coming home Monday night sucked big time, because I was driving in it. This morning was a little better, but not by much. They had the roads slightly plowed, meaning there was now only one lane cleared out and the passing lane was non-existent. That figures, that is winter in Wisconsin.

What’s up with these rovers on Mars? What in the fuck do they expect to find anyway? So far all they’ve found are rocks! Let’s see, there’s no water on the planet, therefore no life. What the hell else do you think is going to turn up there? Oh look, an old Cadillac. Another waste of $820 million that this country doesn’t fucking have in the first place. Hey, let’s put some more people out of work so we can go look at some rocks on another planet. Hey fuckers, we’ve got rocks right here on Earth if you’d bother looking. For $820 million I think we could have come up with something better to do. Hey, let’s educate some people. Let’s try to stimulate the economy. Let’s go blow up another country that George Bush doesn’t like. All I’m trying to say is maybe we should take care of some of the shit on Earth before we start fucking up another planet. The rovers aren’t coming back either, so right there we’re littering on another planet. $820 million dollars worth of litter

February 12, 2004
In case you didn’t know it, I hate winter
Have I mentioned how much I love to shovel snow lately? No? Probably because I fucking hate shoveling snow. They showed a lovely graphic on the news this morning showing how we have had only three snow free days since January 20th or so. What a bunch of bullshit this is getting to be. I see that we are going to get some slight warming next week. We are in the time of year where whenever the sun pokes out, it melts a little of this shit. I can’t wait until it gets sloppy and slushy out, then I can sell some windshield wash at work.

Hey, only two more days until Valentines Day. I see all the people lining up already buying all of their shit for their sweethearts. It is going to be fucking crazy tomorrow, and I’m really glad I won’t be there on Saturday. I see all of these people buying cards, and I wonder how do you pick out a good card anyway? Here are a few of my favorites, which might explain why I was never offered that position at Hallmark.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Here are some flowers,
When do we screw?

Here’s to you,
Here’s to your health,
Wait, I don’t even like you,
Go fuck yourself

Tingly’s how I feel when you’re near,
Remember that night when we drank all the beer
It was a bad idea now I can see,
And for some reason now it burns when I pee.

March 25, 2004
Back home, finally
I’m back. I was in Sioux Falls South Dakota yesterday and most of today. I left my house at seven in the morning on Tuesday and drove almost two hours to a neighboring store where I met my ride. Now I drive a Mustang and he drives a Grand Marquis, which is by any means a grandpa car. However, apparently grandpas drive in luxury, because he had shit in there that my car has never seen. One thing that stuck out in my mind was the temperature control. He sets it to 70 and the car maintains that temperature until he changes it. Now on my car it works a little different. I basically have two settings. My car is either fucking cold or fucking hot. Those are the choices, pick one. It took roughly five hours to get to Sioux Falls from the store. Once we got there we checked into our rooms. We stayed at the Sheraton, which was hella sweet if I do say so myself. Unfortunately there was work to be done. We found out that we had our Halloween and Christmas orders done for us already by corporate, because if anyone knows my store, it’s those assholes. Last year we were dumped on horribly with a shitload of toys that were unappealing and overpriced. Due to our poor sales last year, this year they ordered nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, but I’d say a little closer to some window clings, some bows, some 3 roll wrap and some votive candles. That’s all they fucking ordered for us. No Christmas lights or anything. Apparently if you don’t advertise shit and it doesn’t sell, then the next year you just say fuck it and don’t order anything. What do I know anyway, I’ve only been doing this for nine years.

April 22, 2004
It’s Earth Day or something like that…
It’s Earth Day. What did you get for the Earth today? Nothing? You selfish bastards. Unlike some of the fanatics out there, I did not plant a tree or anything along those lines. I think that is so cliche to do. I decided to take Earth Day a little more personal and I figured that I would help out the planet by helping eliminate some extra methane gas from the atmosphere. That’s right, I didn’t fart today. Don’t laugh, sacrifices like this take preperation (possibly of the H variety when I finally let loose) and planning. I had to avoid all Mexican foods yesterday, spicy items and carbs of any kind. Thanks to my personal sacrifice the good people of Earth will be able to live an extra .0000435 seconds before the Earth explodes from methane emissions.

Ah, Friday is upon us finally. It has been a long week of sorts and I am looking forward to the weekend. Of course the weather is probably not going to cooporate but I guess I will live through it all. Of course it could always be worse. We could be getting snow, or even tornadoes. Since this is Wisconsin, both of those are possible in the same day.

May 05, 2004
That Tangy Zip of Cinco de Mayo
Today is Cinco de Mayo. My Cinco de Mayo celebration got completely out of hand when those Miracle Whip assholes showed up and stole the show with their whole “tangy zip” spchiel. Those bastards. Seriously though, are you celebrating, because I’m not. It’s not because I’m too good for the holiday or anything like that, it’s more because I have no idea what it’s about.

I was actually watching TV today, which I rarely do, and was overwhelmed by the stupidity of this whole Friends fiasco going on. They are making it look like they are the first show that has ever ended a series. Oh look, it’s the Friends 1 hour special tonight, followed by the two hour Dateline special and then tomorrow night there is going to be the two hour finale. Let me be one of the first to say… Big Fuckin’ Whoop. I know some people like the show but I don’t see the big deal; the show will live on forever in syndication and you can buy the first six seasons on DVD already. Then of course they are charging somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million per commercial. I guess that explains why they are pumping up the show like it is the second coming of Christ.

June 09, 2004
Observations from the field
I’ve been working in a grocery store for over 10 years now; my current job a little over 8. When you work in places like that the first thing you notice is that there are some stupid ass customers out there. The second thing that you notice is that there are some weird ass products out there as well. Either the product is fucked up or the marketing behind the product is fucked up.
Case in point. I saw this on a Jack’s Naturally Rising Pizza; it’s probably on all frozen pizzas, I just didn’t look. There is a little starburst on them that says “good source of calcium”. What the fuck is so good about it? It’s pizza, it’s definitely not health food we’re talking about here. I like pizza but come on now, let’s get a little serious here. Pizza a good source of calcium? That’s like saying cigarettes are a good source of menthol. Hey, 100 proof liquor; good source of grain. See where I’m going here? If you are eating the pizza I’m sure the farthest thing from your mind is whoa, there’s calcium in here. Pizza, does a body good. Just think, you could eat a whole pizza every night for your calcium supplement and then hope it makes your bones stronger to hold up your new large pizza filled ass.

The second thing I’ve noticed was in my own department. Playtex Beyond. Beyond what? I don’t know much about tampons but I don’t think they can go much more beyond where they go now. This almost sounds like a bad movie sequel to me.

In 2000 Playtex set out to rid the world of ruined pants and heavy flows. After receiving many close calls and being badly beaten Playtex returned to the secret hideout and has underwent many improvements. Today Playtex is stronger, wiser and more absorbent than ever… See Playtex Beyond. Opening in theaters everywhere Friday.

Yeah, so I shouldn’t sit home alone when the power goes out, I know. Yeah, power went out last night after the wonderful holy shit electrical storm we had. Monday and Tuesday it was so damn hot and humid out that you could hardly stand it. Today it is so fucking cold; you can hardly stand it.

July 31, 2004
Where the fuck did July go?
Whoa, August is tomorrow already? When did that bullshit happen? I swear I was just blowing off fireworks last night. Oh that’s right I was, then the cops came, we had our little talk and a few hours and a couple hundred bucks later I was back home. But that’s not the point, the point is that this year is going by way too fast. Apparently you spend your whole life growing up wanting to be older, then you hit that magical 30 and you’ve gained so much momentum that now it keeps moving so fast and it seems like you are going to be in adult diapers in no time. I’ve already seen the boss that’s been at my job since I started leave this year, my friends might be splitting up, my job sucks more and more and a lot of other things this year that I’m not too fond of. Being 30 sucks ass. Oh, and by the way, that part about the fireworks and the cops. I made that shit up to keep you fuckers reading.

Well, there is one good thing about July ending. My bandwidth gets reset soon. At my last check I was right around the 3.85GB range, meaning one too many asshole AOL’ers could fuck up my site and push me over the limit. Fortunately I am less than an hour and a half away from August 1st meaning it will reset very soon.

Speaking of only being an hour and a half away from August 1st I have a question. Why don’t people celebrate that shit? Everyone gets all excited when you change the calendar from December to January so why not when we change from July to August; or any month for that matter? I know in December you get to pick a brand new calendar and all, you can shed your Hello Kitty image and go for the much more rough and tough Garfield calendar, but come on… the month is changing, that deserves some sort of celebration. Wait, I just turned on my police scanner, and it sounds like some people are celebrating the new month. Good for them, nothing makes celebrating a new month worth it like waking up in the detox clinic with your front teeth busted out.

August 19, 2004
Day Four
Today was the day. Today is when the new door went up. I think I made reference yesterday to wondering if Bob Vila was going to show up or not. Well, after I wrote that I realized that if Bob did show up, he wouldn’t do a fucking thing. I’ve never really seen him do much on that show. He usually walks around with the camera following him and tries some things, but never sticks around and finishes them. If Bob had been here it would have went something like this.

“We’re here at the front of the house and we have Dave here installing a new front door. Those are pretty heavy, how’d you get that in by yourself? I see you’re at the hammering stage now, mind if I take a crack at it? Yes, you have to be very careful when you are hammering. Sometimes it helps to be mad at the nails. I like to pretend they are those cocksuckers from PBS that fired me from This Old House many years ago. Well, I’ll let you get back to work now while I stroll down to the mill shop and we’ll see just how they make these doors.”

So yeah, it would have gone something like that. I guess if I’m going to be hoping someone would have shown up I should have been looking for the people from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition or any one of those handfuls of new fangled home improvement shows. Well, in any event the door is up and it opens and closed much easier than the old door. I’d have to say mission accomplished.

September 29, 2004
Wheel of Bullshit
Anyone who reads this blog to any extent knows I don’t spend much time watching television. I do watch movies and my few vices, but for the most part I don’t spend a whole lot of time surfing for shit to watch. Tonight while I was at a relative’s house they had on Wheel of Fortune. I almost forgot this sorry excuse of a program was still allowed to be broadcast.

This is surviving from the golden age of game shows. You know, back when you had your large list of different game shows to choose from in case you thought you had a chance to be a contestant; but more likely just a casual observer. I don’t know if it went as far back as Let’s Make a Deal or anything, but it’s an older show, that’s for sure. Nowadays there aren’t too many game shows out there, unless you consider eating a fucking pig spleen to be a good premise for a game show. Yes, reality TV is nothing more than the game show’s retarded step cousin that we apparently can’t stop from breeding. Of course, I have ripped reality TV enough in the past so I will give it the night off and get back to what I was bitching about in the first place: The Wheel of Fortune. Sure, if you tune into it nowadays, then you would just think it was a prize filled show with a very easy task. Spin the wheel and take a chance. That and be able to solve a goddamn puzzle. Other than that there really isn’t anything too hard to the game, as most of it relies on luck and the common sense of a third grader (which at least one contestant a night does not possess.)

You see though, when I was a youngster and I would be forced to watch this game show it was totally different. First off Vanna (wtf kind of name is that anyway?) didn’t just touch the letter, she actually had to earn her huge ass salary and manually turn the letters. They still lit them up for her so she didn’t fuck it up and accidentally turn the wrong letters, but she actually had to push one of the sides until it started turning and then completely spin the letter box around. I believe that was the practice until somewhere in the year 2000 when unknowingly to fans of the show Vanna caught her hand in one of the letter R’s as she was spinning it for the puzzle FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Due to that unfortunate accident that almost ended her career as the premier letter turner in the United States, drastic changes were made. From that day forward letters were no longer turned, instead a multi-million dollar touch screen system was put in, that in all honesty can run itself. However out of guilt and to avoid a lawsuit, they are keeping Vanna around for a while longer, at least until her tits start sagging some more.

The other thing that is totally different on the show is the prizes. Back in my old days of watching this slop, they didn’t win prizes, they won money. Sounds good doesn’t it? Well, hold onto your hats kids, it gets worse. After each puzzle was solved, the poor Jeopardy contestant reject was then forced to spend the money they just earned on “prizes.” Ah, the illustrious catch… because they never got to bid on anything really nice, it was always lame shit that only dumb fuckers that lived in California would ever want to even own. The poor contestant would win $650 in the round then be forced to waste it on a stupid fucking ceramic Dalmatian. First off I know that piece of shit Dalmatian was never worth as much as they were saying, and I also know that had there been anything better that nobody would have bought half that shit. From what I understand, the reasons that they used to have the shop segment to buy all of those stupid bullshit prizes was because it was Merv Griffin’s way of having a garage sale. He had all of these lame ass trinkets just lying around his house and he thought maybe he could donate them to charity or maybe try to sell them and then it dawned on him. Sell it to those stupid fucking contestants. What a better way to get rid of your crap that even Goodwill wouldn’t take than to give someone money and then say, it’s only good to buy this shit.
Ahh, the old days when Wheel of Fortune wasn’t such a lame piece of shit.

October 26, 2004
Fuck Halloween
Honestly for whatever reason, I’m not really to into Halloween this year. It is only five more days from now and I couldn’t give a shit. I have four pumpkings sitting in the garage that I don’t even know if I want to carve. It’s rather unusual for me because normally I like to do that, just haven’t decided whether or not I am going to yet. One of the problems is that I will be working on Halloween this year, as well as having inventory on the day. Nothing puts a damper on Halloween like having inventory on that day. One of the cool things about it being on Sunday though is that maybe some of the uptight religious freaks may get upset about people dressing up like devils and what not on Sunday. Speaking of which, when I was 12 I went to a costume contest at a church dressed as a devil and I won first place. Take that fuckers.

I happened to catch the last five minutes of the Maury Povich show today and surprisingly he was doing a show about women that fuck every man they’ve ever met and then want him to do a DNA test for them so they can figure out who the daddy is. The test I would assume is free as long as you want to take your slutty white trash ass on TV and let the world know you’re a whore. Tonight in the last few minutes of the show that I saw the woman and either her husband or lover or brother, I don’t know because I didn’t see it from the start… anyway they had a 10 month old and she wasn’t sure if it was his because when she got pregnant she was fucking with eight different guys. Well as luck would have it the poor guy turned out to be the father and therefore didn’t call her a stupid bitch and walk out on her (I think I still would reserve that as an option). Maury asked her if her man wasn’t the dad would she want to contact the other men and try to find out who the father was and she said no because she knows they would be nothing but a druggie and she didn’t want to expose the kid to that kind of stuff. So, if her man wasn’t the daddy she didn’t want to explore her other 8 options, then why the fuck did she even waste everyone’s time by coming on the show in the first place? Had the poor misguided soul that turned out to be the father found out he wasn’t the dad, and she wasn’t going to pursue any other of her choices, why did she embarras herself and her man by coming on the show in the first place? If she wants to be a cum catcher than that’s fine but spare me your 15 minutes of fame please.

November 17, 2004
Here Comes Santa Clause
OK, not really, not yet anyway. It’s fast approaching though, Christmas that is. Yesterday while I was at work I was asked to change the station at work from our normally crappy music to even crappier Christmas music. You know, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, why the hell should we be subjected to Christmas Music now? There is no reason for that shit that I can think of. Do they actually think that people are going to hear the Christmas music and go… oh I better buy some Christmas stuff here? It doesn’t work that way, especially this early. What most people will think is why do these stupid fuckers have Christmas music playing already? Of course since I was the one that physically changed the station, I was the one to get all the flak for it. All I know is we got a memo from our corporate office saying: Christmas Music Now. Nice, simple and to the point. So I almost thought about writing back to them and telling them that we had a few Muslims and a few Jews in the store that worked there and they don’t appreciate being subjected to the Christmas tunes all the time… then I realized I don’t really give a shit.

I saw the new 2005 Mustang GT yesterday at the Ford dealer in the town that I work in. Pretty choice if I do say so myself. I have been seeing pictures over the last couple years of what this car is going to look like, but honestly, those pictures don’t do it justice whatsoever. When I was looking at the pictures I didn’t really like the shape or anything of the car, but standing there looking at the real thing I have to say; fucking sweet. So when am I going to buy me one? Well, unfortunately not for some time now. I am still checking into going back to school either for computer networking or web site design (duh). So anyway that is my main financial concern for the next couple years. I am currently a money saving fool and actually have more money in savings than I have for quite a few years. My Mustang that I own now is pretty close to paid off and I have no really large outstanding bills, so I can’t see why I shouldn’t go back to school and try and learn a new trade so I can maybe make some more money out there in the future… then I buy the Mustang. A blue convertible Mustang.

I’m also toying around with different looks for my website although I haven’t totally chosen one yet. I have found a few things online which help me in my blog make picture banners and what not, and I am working on that currently. The new look of the blog looks pretty sweet that I’m working on and I’m pretty sure it will be the look very soon… maybe with a little more tweaking.

December 22, 2004
Seriously, I Hate People
I went shopping this morning. When I say this morning I don’t mean like 9am as in your kind of morning, I mean 5am as in my morning. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn’t fall back asleep. My plan was to go back to sleep and then get up around 6 and go to the stores. Well I lay back down and then my mind started racing. Shit, what if I don’t wake up until 9 and then I get there and there’s a bunch of assholes shopping already? So my worrying got the best of me so I got up and threw on whatever I was wearing yesterday and went to the store. That’s right, no showers for me. Hey, if I’m going out of my house that early in the morning, I’m too tired to really give a shit what odors are radiating from my body. Besides, I did a cologne and Febreeze spray down before I left the house. I’m sure I smelled better than half of the people that were in the store cleaning the floors. So I go shopping, I buy all my stuff and I didn’t have any other asshole customers get in my way. It was glorious.

This makes me realize a problem I have. I fucking hate people. It’s not just the holiday madness; I’m pretty sure on this one. I think I’d be better off living on a deserted island somewhere. Every time I turn on the news I have to see some degenerate loser that has committed some heinous crime. Anywhere from the guy that shot the hunters in my own backyard to a woman killing another woman, then cutting her open with a fucking car key and stealing her baby out of her stomach and claiming it as her own. People say they act like animals, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an animal kill another, rip its unborn baby out of it and claim it. Nope, can’t say I ever have. I guess if this woman is so desperate to have a child that maybe someone should impregnate her. Impregnate her with a rattlesnake, or perhaps a piranha. People like this shouldn’t be allowed to even waste our oxygen. And why the fuck are we going to have a trial for this? I’m so sick of assholes doing the crime then having some sad ass excuse for why they did it. Hey, did you kill them or not? It’s a yes or no question; it’s not an essay question. The guy that killed the six hunters admitted that he did it and now they are going to have a trial to find out why. What? They can’t even say he killed them on the news; they have to say he allegedly killed them or he is charged with killing them. He fucking admitted it, there is no question here.

Now when they try this woman for killing the pregnant lady and taking the baby even though they know they did it… guess what? There goes more of your hard earned tax money. It’s no wonder that we have libraries that are falling apart and roads that are crumbling and fewer policemen on the streets. We are paying to prove that people that are guilty are really guilty. Maybe if we’d spend the money on prevention instead of just cleaning up afterwards then perhaps, just perhaps some of this fucked up shit wouldn’t be happening.

But then again, what do I know? I’m just a disgruntled human. Deserted island; here I come.

With the largest ever devastation from a natural disaster that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, I was reminded of something that I put in my blog on January 1, 2004. Check this shit out…
Well, it’s officially here, 2004 has kicked the hinges off the door and is here in full force. I now have my brand new calendar all in place and I am ready for whatever the New Year has to offer, which seems to be earthquakes. Lots of fucking earthquakes. We’ve already had one in California on December 22, then there was a large one in Iran on December 26. Today another earthquake hit Mexico city. I see a trend beginning here, don’t you? 2004 will be the year of horrible natural disasters.

Yeah, I wrote that almost a year ago. Maybe I was just shooting off at the hip and maybe I really do know what I’m talking about. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen four huge ass hurricanes hit Florida in the same year, and one even came at them twice. I’ve never seen over 100,000 people die from anything, let alone an earthquake driven tsunami. Definitely a very weird year.

As far as work goes, there really hasn’t been anything that has royally pissed me off lately. In fact I’m off of work today and I work tomorrow and I’m off again Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which I’m guessing is a reward for working Christmas Eve. Oh wait, what am I thinking? Of course I’m pissed off about something; I have to be because they’re idiots there. I had already mentioned that they ordered a pallet of the large storage containers for me which I haven’t gotten yet. Then they went ahead and ordered me up to two pallets of kitchen size plastic containers that will retail for $1 each. Two fucking pallets. I got a shipper of this dollar plastic shit and you know what? I still have a half a shipper left, what in the hell am I going to do with two pallets?

Tuesday I got in a whole pallet of Slim Fast Ultima, because everyone and their mother are going to be going on a diet in a few days… for a few days. Now I’ve gotten pallets of Slim Fast in the past and they don’t sell. I tried to tell corporate this before and apparently I don’t know what I’m talking about. In fact I got signed up for two pallets, the second one coming in around March. I have sent so many six packs of Slim Fast back to my warehouse because it outdated on me I can’t even remember how many times I’ve had to do it. Well, I got the shit in the store, so nothing to do about it except put it out. These are bonus packs, so it’s 6 plus 2 free. I check out to see if it’s in the system and shockingly they are. However, even though they are in the system, they aren’t in there right. I sell the six packs for $6.49 and the ones that came in say “8 cans for the price of 6”. Well, the 8 packs are ringing up at $7.99… So much for 2 free. Well, I had to email a few people on that and I am hoping that today they are getting downloaded so I can put them out tomorrow when I go in. Just another day in the life of working for idiots.

Ok, it’s 3am on Christmas morning. Where’s Santa? I checked under my tree and there’s no presents but someone ate the damn cookies. Oh wait, that was me. Unfortunately I don’t get a whole lot of things anymore which is fine as far as I’m concerned. Usually if I want something I just go and buy it myself. I think I actually bought myself more stuff while I was shopping for everyone that I got. All I got for Christmas was a new razor, a sweatshirt and a wallet with $100 in it. While I was doing my Christmas shopping I bought myself a new phone, the movie Dodgeball and a few other items. Dollar wise I probably spent less than what I got and I’m sure I spent more on everyone that what I bought myself so I’m good to go.

I left work early yesterday (surprise, surprise). I had to help the guy that was stuck working the service counter/movie counter yesterday around noon and let me tell you, it was nuts. I went over to give him a lunch at about noon and he was buried with people. There was a line at the service counter wanting gift certificates and then a line at the movie counter wanting movies. Then there was a stack of movies that needed to be batched in for returns so they could go back on the shelf, I’d say about 30 of them. Well I get over there to give him his lunch and he’s stuck filling out about 10 gift certificates for someone because our stupid corporate can’t get with the times and get those gift cards like the rest of the free world has. So he’s doing that and I decide to tackle the movie side of the counter. Mistake! The most annoying woman I’ve ever encountered since starting at the store is waiting at the counter. We’ve had quite a few of our rental DVD’s ripped off from the store so now we have all of the rentals behind our counter in sight of the customers and we put the empty boxes out on the shelf for the customers to bring up to us to get their movies. Well apparently this woman didn’t understand the concept. At least six times she brought an empty VHS box up and asked if we had the movie on DVD. Then she spots the return pile. Well do you have Bourne Supremacy on DVD in that pile? Do you have I, Robot in that pile? Do you have 50 First Dates in that pile? Then she’d see the ones behind the counter and go, well you have it right there. Honestly I had to explain to her on more than one occasion that those were empty boxes and the movies were rented out. I can’t tell you how many times she came up and asked this question; and it’s not like I didn’t have other customers that were checking out movies that I was helping. She apparently thought she had some sort of customer seniority to just monopolize my time with her problems. Then apparently the other customers around her got this bright idea that I had all of the “good movies” in the return piles and soon everyone was asking me if I had this or that in the pile. Then they had the nerve to ask me to see if the movie was coming back today and one customer actually had the nerve to ask if we’d be calling the people to make sure they bring back the movies. It’s like get a grip lady, I’m sure Christmas won’t be ruined if you don’t get to see Collateral.

Well about 12:30 the service counter guy finally gets to take his lunch, which is a half hour late. During the half hour he’s gone I got two of the movies batched in for returns. I also had to deal with all of the movie renters asking me to dig through the return piles. I was about to say well if you’ll all shut up and let me batch in the returns then you’ll know what I’ve got. So then a half hour later when he gets back from lunch I let him take over most of the duties and I finally get all of the movies batched in and put back on the shelf. Then it’s time for my lunch. I check out the change drawer that we have at the service counter and realize that we’re out. Either that or we are handing out $50’s and $100’s for change. So I replenish that and then I go on lunch roughly an hour later than scheduled. By the time I get back from lunch it’s calmed down considerably. Thankfully the Vikings and the Packers were playing football and between that and church the customer count dwindled severely. When I got back I was able to finish my bookkeeping duties. About 2:30 I was done with everything in the office so I decided to head back over to the service counter and help out with anything he was behind on. Well when I get back over there another pile of returns had accumulated. I would assume that he was probably on his 600th dollar of gift certificates that he was writing out since that’s the only place you can purchase them in the store. Well I batched in most of the movies and put them back and every time I’d come back from putting them back on the shelf I’d have about 10 more in the box. This went on until around 4 and then the fun phone calls started. About two weeks ago we put the signs on all of the doors and cash registers stating that on Christmas Eve we’d be closing at 6pm and we’d be closed all day on Christmas Day. Well I guess about half the town just wanted to confirm that because aside from one phone call that I took that was the main question I got asked.

“Um, I was just calling to see what time you closed tonight.”
“Well we close at 6”
“Oh, ok, I see. What time are you open tomorrow?”
“We aren’t, we are closed tomorrow and we will open up again Sunday”
“Oh, ok”
“Well I have to go; some other idiot is calling on another line and probably is going to ask me the same stupid question.”

So was my day. Luckily after four it died in there. It went from there hardly being a parking spot in the place to there being about five cars in the lot at 4:30. That’s when I told the only remaining management that I thought I should get going since I’d been there since the store opened. She agreed and I split. I guess that was my Christmas bonus. Bah Humbug.

I went shopping this morning. When I say this morning I don’t mean like 9am as in your kind of morning, I mean 5am as in my morning. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn’t fall back asleep. My plan was to go back to sleep and then get up around 6 and go to the stores. Well I lay back down and then my mind started racing. Shit, what if I don’t wake up until 9 and then I get there and there’s a bunch of assholes shopping already? So my worrying got the best of me so I got up and threw on whatever I was wearing yesterday and went to the store. That’s right, no showers for me. Hey, if I’m going out of my house that early in the morning, I’m too tired to really give a shit what odors are radiating from my body. Besides, I did a cologne and Febreeze spray down before I left the house. I’m sure I smelled better than half of the people that were in the store cleaning the floors. So I go shopping, I buy all my stuff and I didn’t have any other asshole customers get in my way. It was glorious.

This makes me realize a problem I have. I fucking hate people. It’s not just the holiday madness; I’m pretty sure on this one. I think I’d be better off living on a deserted island somewhere. Every time I turn on the news I have to see some degenerate loser that has committed some heinous crime. Anywhere from the guy that shot the hunters in my own backyard to a woman killing another woman, then cutting her open with a fucking car key and stealing her baby out of her stomach and claiming it as her own. People say they act like animals, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an animal kill another, rip its unborn baby out of it and claim it. Nope, can’t say I ever have. I guess if this woman is so desperate to have a child that maybe someone should impregnate her. Impregnate her with a rattlesnake, or perhaps a piranha. People like this shouldn’t be allowed to even waste our oxygen. And why the fuck are we going to have a trial for this? I’m so sick of assholes doing the crime then having some sad ass excuse for why they did it. Hey, did you kill them or not? It’s a yes or no question; it’s not an essay question. The guy that killed the six hunters admitted that he did it and now they are going to have a trial to find out why. What? They can’t even say he killed them on the news; they have to say he allegedly killed them or he is charged with killing them. He fucking admitted it, there is no question here. Now when they try this woman for killing the pregnant lady and taking the baby even though they know they did it… guess what? There goes more of your hard earned tax money. It’s no wonder that we have libraries that are falling apart and roads that are crumbling and fewer policemen on the streets. We are paying to prove that people that are guilty are really guilty. Maybe if we’d spend the money on prevention instead of just cleaning up afterwards then perhaps, just perhaps some of this fucked up shit wouldn’t be happening.
But then again, what do I know? I’m just a disgruntled human. Deserted island; here I come.

Well, we aren’t too far away from the big ass day of Christmas. You know what that means don’t you? It means I need to get my lazy ass out of the house and buy some damn presents. It’d be much funnier if I was joking about it. I still only have two people completely taken care of. I haven’t even went out and bought my mom her gift although I’m pretty sure I know what I’m getting it’s that whole leaving the house to get it that I’m having the problem with. You see, I stopped at Wal Mart last week and I suddenly realized that every other fucking person in the county I lived in had the exact same idea to stop at Wal Mart so I didn’t even bother going in, I just drove off swearing I’d go back and finish my shopping later. I guess later is now. I am debating on going out tonight yet or waiting until 4am when I wake up and can’t sleep and just going then. I can always come back home and crash in bed afterwords if I’m hella tired. Now all I have to do is decide what in the hell I’m going to buy for the other people on my list. Hmmmm…?

I’m feverishly working away on another update on my 3rd Bass page. This time I’m killing the two subdomains and I’m going to group everything back into one site. So far I’m pleased with the design aspect of the site. It’s a black background with a white font, which is kind of what I wanted to do to this site, but it looks better on that site. I’m hoping to have that completed by the first of the year.
Gee, can I bitch anymore about my job? I’m sure I have things to bitch about, like the pallet of bird food I got today or the pallet of large storage containers that are coming in (that I had a few years ago and sold about 3 of.) But you know what? I don’t really give a shit. I spend most of my day at work being pissed off and where does it get me? Absolutely nowhere except more pissed off. On the other side of the coin, I must say that having four tires with tread on them and 210 pounds in the trunk are extremely helpful on our shitty winter roads. I’m almost ready to kick myself in the ass for not doing that to my car months ago, or even last winter for that matter. I can’t believe the difference, and so far I haven’t even slipped once. Wait, that means I don’t have an excuse to call in to work and say I’m not going to make it in. Damn you Goodyear.

I’m sick of it. Sick of work, sick of Christmas, sick of everything. I’m glad that I don’t have a ton of shit in the store for Christmas this year because in about a week I’d have to mark all of it down. Now I’ve probably got about a cartload worth to mark down. That is if I’m still working there after Christmas. I’ve about had it with the stupidity that goes on around there. Now on Christmas Eve I’m scheduled from open to close which kind of pissed me off. The manager is too but hey, that’s his job and he may still give a flying fuck. I on the other hand do not and I probably won’t be there all day Christmas Eve. A 12 hour day doesn’t exactly make me excited anyway. Then they wonder why I’m not bothering with the Christmas Party. Well, I guess Christmas party is a little of an overstatement. It’s a get together at a local bar/food joint because our corporate is too fucking cheap to foot any sort of a bill for their employees. Why would they pay their money to do anything for the people that are working the front lines and bringing in money for them? I mean it’s obvious that they don’t trust us, considering every door in the fucking store is locked up tight except for the bathrooms. Shit, even our compactor is locked now which meant that when I go in the back I just throw my shit on the floor because I’m not going to fuck around looking for someone with a key.

Tuesday on my load I got two shippers of DVD’s that retail for $1 each. Two shippers of 300. So I have 600 DVD’s sitting in my backroom because even though they were ordered for us by our corporate office, the dumbass that ordered for us didn’t bother to pass that information along to the people in the pricing office and now I have 600 not in files sitting here. After a long ass game of email tag I finally got a response from someone over the ordering idiot telling me to just have our store pricing person put these items into the system and to not wait any longer. I also fired off the email to another one of the people I actually still like at corporate telling him about this idiot that ordered me all of this summer shit (yeah, same one that ordered the DVD’s.) So I emailed him telling him how this dumbass ordered all this summer stuff that I am still sitting on plus another shitload of summer stuff that I haven’t had any luck selling in the past and I just happened to mention that I’m almost at the point where I’m going to throw my hands up and just walk away from it all. Why? Because I’m sick of it. That and I can see the writing on the wall that it’s an unstoppable downhill slide to bankruptcy and I don’t really want to stick around for that. When I leave either by giving notice or just walking off I want it to be because I want to, not because I have to.

What other fun stupid shit is going on around here that has nothing to do with my stupid bullshit job? Well, I really haven’t started Christmas shopping yet. Out of five people I’ve only got one done, and that’s because I got him a gift card. I really do hate Christmas shopping for anyone that isn’t a kid. At least when I buy something for a kid I get the idea that they might actually like the item unless someone else bought them the same exact thing. However when I’m shopping for an adult it doesn’t seem to quite work out that way. Adults usually won’t tell you what they want either which pisses me off. They just him and haw around about how they don’t really need anything and then when you buy them some lame desk toy they pretend to like it, but you know they’ll be at the store the day after Christmas trying to return it so they can buy what they really wanted. I think there should be a law that when adults tell each other that they aren’t going to exchange gifts that year and then one or both ends up buying something anyway; whoever bought a gift and spoiled the no gift pact should be poked continuously with a sharpened candy cane. Right in the fucking eyes.

So far this winter I’ve been rather impressed. Sure we’ve had shitty days like today where the winds are whipping around at 40 plus miles per hour, but for the most part it’s been mild thus far. We started out with four inches of snow not so long ago, but have had a few bouts of rain since then and now the snow is pretty much non-existent… just the way I like it. The only thing that does suck about rain is that when it rains it’s usually somewhere around 35 degrees which usually spells icy roads and I don’t like driving to work on ice in my car.

Speaking of my car, I ended up getting four new tires for it because the old ones were bald. The good news in this, if you can call it good, is that it cost me less than $300. However, I currently only have three new tires on my car. Apparently at the place I had them put on one of the four tires they had was slit. Now they won’t have any new ones in until this Tuesday which means that I won’t be getting my fourth new tire on until Wednesday on my day off. I must say though that with tires with actual tread on them and 210 pounds of sand in the trunk, the ride is much better than it was before.

I see that Wal Mart is being sued because they sold an unlabeled CD with the word fuck on it. Well, first off let me say that if Wal Mart had a spine and had followed my advice from a few years ago and carried explicit lyric CD’s then this wouldn’t be such a shock to everyone and there wouldn’t be such an issue at hand. Now onto Wal Mart’s defense. Yeah, you heard that right, their defense… don’t worry, probably won’t ever happen again. Wal Mart is not in charge of putting explicit content labels onto the music; the record companies are. Wal Mart doesn’t edit the CD’s that go into their crappy music selection, the record companies do. If anyone is to blame for shipping these CD’s out to Wal Mart, it is the record companies themselves, not the store selling them. What do people think, that the idiots at Wal Mart sit there and listen to every CD that comes through their doors before buying them? Highly doubtful. Now speaking of idiots it’s time to move on to the stupid asses that are pulling the lawsuit out of their asses. Let’s break it down here. According to the article the word fuck was in one of the songs; that’s all it said, didn’t say repetitive cursing or anything of that manner. So for one uttering of the word fuck they want this: damages of up to $74,500 for each of the thousands of people who bought the music at Wal-Marts in Maryland. Wow, if I could get $74,500 for every time I heard the word fuck in my lifetime I’d be fucking rich. Now in the article it said the girl in question was 13 years old which unless she’s home schooled puts her in the 7th or 8th grade where I’m sure she hears her fair share of cursing. Let’s play out this situation out with myself when I was about 13 and I had just bought Run DMC’s Raising Hell tape. I was listening to it and my mom was in the room and when the song Hit It Run came on somewhere towards the end DMC says “I leave all suckers in the dust, those dumb motherfuckers can’t mess with us”. That was also an unstickered album and what did my mom do? Nothing. She said ‘well that’s awful’ and that was it. No lawsuits, no blaming Woolworths for selling me horrible music that would someday corrupt my poor growing brain or anything like that, just a shake of the head and go on with the day. Maybe those people that filed the lawsuit should just shake their heads and move on.

So I wake up this morning getting ready to go to my ultra shitty job like I do everyday and when I go outside to my car I realize that my rear passenger side tire is flat. Well that’s just a fucking great way to start out my Tuesday morning. Although on the side it was nice because I got to go in late to work. Well, I could hear the air leaking out of the tire so I knew that I must have drove over something. Well when I pulled the old tire off and put the little donut on there I not only noticed that a rock had punctured my tire but also that my tread was almost non existent. So that means that on my day off tomorrow I will be out spending my hard earned cash on rubbers. Unfortunately tire rubber. After the fun this morning I looked at my other three tires and realized that the little donut tire had more tread on it than the other three combined. Oh yeah, and from what I can see so far, the tires I need will cost close to $100 a piece. Ya-fuckin-hoo.

But wait, it gets better. I get to work today and there is a pallet of puzzles sitting in the backroom. Not a case a pallet. A fucking pallet of puzzles sitting there. Now just what in the hell am I going to do with 300 puzzles, especially considering that I still have around 50 sitting around from last year? So I get pissed and decide to peer through my pre-books and see what other surprises await me. Well, when I saw spring and summer I realized that the fun was going to continue all the way through April. I don’t know if I put it in here or not so I’ll reiterate it a little for the history lesson. At the end of summer last year starting in July I tried to get retail markdowns on most of the items I was going to run long on. I was flatly denied being told that we would not have any markdowns. Then after summer was finished and done another yahoo from our corporate comes in and wants to know why we didn’t mark all of this shit down and sell through. So now I am sitting on all of this shit which brings us to today. My order for next year was really light. I ordered light anticipating having this shit I have now still here next summer; and I was right. Well apparently after almost ten years I don’t know what I’m doing because some dumb motherfucker up at our corporate office altered my order extensively. Some of the shit I did order he either doubled or tripled. A ton of the shit I have mondo overstock from last year on he ordered for me. The sad thing is I doubt there is anything that I can do about it either. Besides who knows my store better than some dumb bastard that’s never even set foot inside it? That’s what I thought.

Why are customers such pains in the asses? I would think that a customer’s main concern would be to get their shit and get out; not to cause as much ruckus as they possibly can before departing. I have no real specific examples at the moment because I didn’t work today, but you all know what I mean. I got an email the other day at work telling me that I am going to be able to sell New Release DVD’s again. Gee, that’s wonderful news that I didn’t need nor want. You see, here’s the whole problem. Let’s say we are selling a new DVD for $19.99, well our cost is anywhere from $18 to $19.54 for that movie. For a company that wants me to attain and maintain a 45% gross margin, the DVD’s aren’t quite cutting it are they? Never mind the fact that they are a high theft item. Did I mention that before? See, people like to steal the damn things and either watch them or sell them on EBAY. Now I’m not exactly Mr. Lawful here and I’m not extremely loyal to my company, but you don’t steal shit from me. I am not here to support your meth habit that you have developed and now must steal and sell shit to keep up. So what I’m getting to is that about four months ago when I was told that I couldn’t sell New Release DVD’s anymore, we threw away our nice locking rack. So now they come out and say “hey, you can sell DVD’s again at extremely low margins and you have no way to stop the local assholes from stealing them… good luck”. Well, I think I’m going to have to pass on that offer.

Speaking of DVD’s, I bought the new Spiderman 2 yesterday morning. Not from my store of course because we don’t sell DVD’s. Haven’t you been paying attention here? On my way to work yesterday I stopped in at my nemesis Wal Mart and bought it. I didn’t buy it in the morning because I was afraid that they would be out of stock by the evening, but instead because I didn’t feel like wading through the sea of people that I would encounter had I went in the evening. You know the people that think they have to buy presents for others and all that happy shit. That and those that have no life and nothing better to do than hang out at Wal Mart all day. I think they call those people losers, that and cashiers. As far as Spiderman 2 goes, I haven’t watched the DVD yet; I will probably do that later tonight when I get off here. I saw it in the theater when it came out so I already know the story and what not. I do wish I knew why the DVD manufacturers have to make this stupid paper cover that goes over the actual movie sleeve. It’s an exact duplicate of the DVD cover and back cover and it serves no purpose that I can see except to kill more trees. Someone told me it was to prevent theft, which is the equivalent of tying a piece of yarn to your bicycle to stop someone from stealing it. See, if it’s for theft there is a problem here. The actual movie slips right out of the paper case. So if I was going to steal this, all I’d have to do is slip it out of the case, put the movie in my jacket and now put this empty case that from a distance still looks like the movie back on the shelf. Another problem I have is seriously, why is there 10 hours of bonus footage on this disk? Honestly aside from the 2 hours I spend watching the actual movie, I might check out 20 minutes. Deleted scenes and outtakes are about all I really care about. Oh well, off to watch a movie… who made the popcorn?

Oh, and in case you’re either retarded or don’t own a calendar; it’s December.