Just knowing me should let you know that I usually root for the underdog. Walmart… fuck ’em (if you wonder how I can bitch about Walmart and yet still shop there, that’s something you’ll just have to figure out on your own) Beaurocratic asshole Republicans… fuck em. You get where this is going. I now see that Microsoft is suing a 17 year old who is named Mike Rowe. Mike created a website at http://www.mikerowesoft.com and apparently the people at Microsoft are somewhat pissed off about that. Obviously they sound pretty close to one another, but anyone that can fucking read can tell the difference between the two. Of course finding people that are still able to read is becoming increasingly hard, they can just sound shit out. Microsoft has sicked their lawyers on this kid now and are demanding he relinquish his domain to them. He sent a letter back and asked if they would re-imburse him for his troubles and they (Microsoft) offered him $10. That’s TEN FUCKING DOLLARS. Fight the Power.

I don’t normally do a blog on Mondays, but today must be special or something. I think I usually don’t do one because Monday’s almost always suck; and today’s no different. I actually worked until 5 tonight, which is about an hour longer than I like to on a Monday, but it cuts an hour off another day later in the week. I’m hoping for Friday.

I woke up this morning and it was -29 with the wind chill. I looked out my window but I didn’t see those fuckers from Good Morning America standing in my neighborhood reporting on how cold it was. Nothing was canceled, nothing closed. Life went on as usual because that’s what we do in Wisconsin. It gets cold and we say fuck it and go on with our lives. That just explains why we have such a high consumption of alcohol in this state.

Is it possible to turn on my television anymore without seeing a reality show? I know I’m probably missing quite a few, but after doing a short search online this is what I came up with: Am I Hot, Amazing Race, Anna Nicole Show, Anything for Love, Apprentice, Around the World in 80 Dates, Average Joe, Bachelor, Bachelorrete, Big Brother, Celebrity Poker, Cupid, Dog Eat Dog, Extreme Makeover, Fear Factor, Joe Millionaire, Last Comic Standing, Meet My Folks, Mole, My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, Osbornes, Paradise Hotel, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Restaurant, Simple Life, Star Search, Surreal Life, Survivor, Temptation Island, Todd TV, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, Who Wants to Marry My Mom.

That doesn’t even include all of the stupid hidden camera stunt shows like Punk’d, Jackass, Girls Behaving Badly and so on and so forth. All the Courtroom drama shows such as Judge Judy and the host of other copycats aren’t in there either. Also not included is Trading Spaces and all of its clones like Monster house and Monster Garage and the list goes on and on.

Why in the hell do the television networks not have the ability to create something original. Do they not realize that at some point they are fucking with peoples lives here? Number one, if you are that influenced by money that you want to go on national television and risk embarrassment, you deserve whatever happens to you. Are you that eager for your 15 minutes of fame? Most of these people won’t ever become famous. Now in the case of American Idol, which I consider to be a hybrid between a game show and a reality show, there is at least the possibility of achieving fame. Kelly Clarkson is famous, but that other goofy shit Justin that was a runner up isn’t. He’s not even on the map anymore. You only have two ways to go when you are on a reality series. Famous or Infamous. Most people end up the second. It’s just like any other aspect of life, a few winners and a whole lot of losers. Definitely a whole lot of losers.

I seriously hope this bullshit craze of reality shows is going to come to an end soon. I see that UPN is trying to get into the trend now and are looking at doing a reality show based on an Amish person experiencing life in the big city. Who the fuck is watching this? Certainly not the Amish, and certainly not me. So my plea to all you network cocksuckers is this: Get off your asses and make something original.

Sadly that will never happen because the television is too saturated with shit now. I get quite a few channels and they are pretty much utter shit to me. Lets see, I think I have roughly 7 CNN’s, 4 C-Spans, 7 ESPN’s, and the list keeps going and going. I think I watch TV about 7 hours per week, if that. I have never watched a reality show unless I was at someone’s house and they had it on. I wonder how long before there are shows like Would You Murder This Guy For a Million and stupid bullshit such as that on TV. Don’t worry, it’s coming… of course so is the Apocalypse.

What in the hell was the top story on my news this morning? I turn it on to see them live on the East Coast pissing and moaning about how cold it was. Oh my God, it snowed and now it’s getting cold. We had to close schools and everything because it’s so cold. It was in the single digits and in some places might reach -20 to -30. Well welcome to winter in Wisconsin you fuckers. When it gets so cold that you walk outside and your breath freezes, then you can amaze me; otherwise I’m not too impressed. The newsgirl that was live this morning was out in an ice fishing village with her big ass thermometer (which was reading a balmy 5 degrees) whining about how cold it was. I’m sorry, when was it decided that winter did not mean cold? Why the hell are we so amazed by the fact that it gets really cold in the winter and really hot in the summer? When it gets into the 115 range people start doing news stories about it, meanwhile there area people in Arizona thinking, what’s the big deal, it’s always that hot here. But you know what they say, it’s not the heat it’s the stupidity.

In case you haven’t been keeping up on me, you probably haven’t figured out that I think George Bush is really Satan. OK, maybe he doesn’t have the horns and shit, but I’m sure oil money could get them removed. You can do anything with plastic surgery these days, just look at Michael Jackson. On second thought, don’t look at him. Back to George now, this whole thing with O’Neill saying that they were planning on going into Iraq from day one makes so much sense it almost hurts. I do have a feeling that Paul O’Neill will probably face a very untimely death in the near future. That seems to be the status quo for anyone that goes up against Bush. It will probably look like an accident… but we’ll know. I see that now George wants to go to Mars now. What the fuck for? How many things can you fuck up, are you going for a record here? I know, Saddam hid his weapons of mass destruction on Mars. That’s it.

It’s Tuesday the 13th. I’m sure there’s a ton of shit going on out there, but I’m not too concerned with it all. We had a bomb threat at work Saturday. I wasn’t there of course so I didn’t find out about it until yesterday. I guess they called and said there was a bomb in the front of the store and you better evacuate and then they hung up. What in the fuck is that all about? What a bunch of pussies. If you’re stupid enough to call and say you put a bomb somewhere, then don’t be such a little bitch and carry it out. It was probably someone that was stealing my drugs out of my store and got pissed because they got pulled out from behind the counter. Oh well, fuck it, let’s just keep the extra fun limited to the weekends so I don’t have to participate, got it?

Speaking of weekend fun, I found a picture of Michael Jackson from the interview he did on 60 Minutes, and I thought in his time of courtroom dramas he may need to try and get some endorsement deals going here to help him pay some of these high lawyer fees he is going to be facing and I couldn’t think of a better one than this… If this deal happens, I do expect a little compensation from it. If it doesn’t happen, don’t sue me, I’m more broke than you are. Go ahead and steal the image if you like, that’s why it’s branded.

Well, I put up Valentines on Friday. When I got to work I only had 5 1/2 hours to use before I would hit the dreaded 4-0. My employer does not like us to hit that number and God forbid we would go over it. I left at 3pm which if you’re counting is 6 hours (yeah, I went over by a half an hour). Hey, I had shit to do. I had to get my damn singing hamsters out on the shelves because I’m sure plenty of people wanted desperately to buy them over the weekend.

I was supposed to have an Oneida program starting this weekend and on Thursday it did not show up on our truck. After calling numerous people at the offices I was told that my superiors did not order any for my store. When called on it, it was suddenly called an oversight and we were going to get it on Saturday. Well, I was out of town Saturday and besides I was on overtime as it was, so I sure as hell did not go in there today either. I am hoping it showed up over the weekend but it probably won’t even show up on the truck until tomorrow, if it does at all. That makes tomorrow a wonderful day.

Speaking of tomorrow, you know what else makes it a wonderful day? I now have to mark down all of my Green Bay Packer merchandise. I have pennants, car flags, stickers and all sorts of stupid shit that I now have to lose my ass on because they lost their ass today. Oh well, at least maybe I can clear all of that shit out of my store and hopefully be rid of plenty of merchandise before March when my next inventory is. Mondays are never fun anyway, so hopefully it will be a quick day to say the least. Thankfully I will finally have a short day on Wednesday again. Yes!!!

You know, I haven’t gotten to putting up that Valentines Day shit yet. I’m sure I haven’t ruined anyone’s day yet by not putting it up either. I don’t believe they are lining up to buy it from me or anything. I’ve got too much shit on my list already without worrying about another worthless holiday. This is a total woman holiday anyway, and as we all know; women are crazy.

If you don’t believe that, tell me what the greatest threat to airline security is? It’s not al-Qaida anymore, it’s drunk women. What the hell is going on here with all these women freaking out on the planes? Is it some sort of PMS amplified by the altitude? I think there should be emergency syringes on all airplanes loaded with Pamprin in a liquid form that can be injected directly into these crazy bitches before they completely snap. Maybe this is why we didn’t have a terrorist attack over the holidays. There was a terrorist onboard thinking… well I can’t follow that shit.

As long as we’re on the subject of crazy bitches, we can’t leave out my favorite one. The gal from Ohio (what the fuck is in the water down there Lisa?) who claimed she bought the winning lottery ticket and lost it and the money was rightfully hers. Why have I never thought of that shit? Oh yeah, because I have at least a half a brain – depending on who’s opinion you get. I guess I’m a little baffled about this whole thing. She said she lost the ticket, then the rightful owner claims the prize and she tries to stop the lottery board from paying her. At what point do you go… holy shit, I don’t have any ground to stand on and I’m totally fucked. I guess that happens today, which is a little too late because now she is facing a charge of filing a false police report which is punishable by 30 days to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine. Guess being broke doesn’t look so bad compared to that. If I was the woman that won I would pay this woman’s $1,000 fine just as a subtle slap in the face. Then again, I’m 1/4 asshole.

Please note that my use of the word SIKE in the title of today’s blog does not mean I condone the use of the word, just that I remember when it was used. If you don’t know what that means then you are a young punk. I’m not old… fuckin little bastards with your loud hip hop music blasting…

This week is going by entirely too slow. That’s it, time to complain to someone. I have a slight headache tonight, possibly from the fucking cold ass temperatures we’ve been suffering through. Then again maybe I’m coming down with something. I probably have a slight case of sickofworkitis coming on. Tomorrow I get to set up Valentines. You guessed it, more singing gorillas and hamsters. How the fuck did they become affiliated with a holiday of love. Look honey, I bought you a singing rodent… assume the position.

Have you ever seen something on the news and said to yourself, what in the fuck? There is a company out there that is making artificial testicles to implant in your dog if you’ve had him neutered. Do you really think your dog wants the vet down there with a knife again? All he’s going to do is end up pissing on them. What if he meets a cute female dog and finds out the hard way that much like a Christmas Tree, his balls are just for decoration. This isn’t an ego booster, it’s an ego killer. The thing that kills me is that if you go to the website and look, they actually have a patent on this. I would have loved to be working in the patent office that day when the guy showed up and pitched this idea. “Yeah, I’m going to sell those cheap super balls out of grocery store lobbies to pet owners for $70 a pair and they can have them sewn into their animals crotch. I’m going to be rich.” According to a news story, they’ve already sold 100,000. Launching your own business like that is risky these days, it takes a lot of balls.

Another interesting thing I found was about the poor guy that is going to federal prison for 15 months because he would buy donuts at a bakery, then repackage them and sell them to health stores claiming they were diet. That is too fucking funny to even get into, but you know I will. Robert Ligon, 68, begins a 15-month jail sentence today for claiming, fraudulently, that his “carob-coated” doughnut contained only three grams of fat and 135 calories. In fact, the chocolate-glazed treat contained a belt-busting 18 grams of fat and 530 calories. Between 1995 and 1997, Ligon bought normal, high-fat rolls and pastries from wholesalers, re-labelled them as low-fat and sold them to American health-food retailers under the name of Nutrisource Inc. I’ve been on several diets in my life, and I know how shitty anything that is low fat tastes. How the hell could these people not know that these were high in fat? I wonder if anyone gained weight because of this. I also wonder why I didn’t think of this shit? I could have been a millionaire by now. First my fake dog ball business is stolen from me, and now my donut scam is out the window too. Fuck. Guess I’ll have to go the reality TV show route.

Another ass dragging Sunday night prepping me up for a wonderful Monday morning. Nothing excites me as much as watching the clock count down until it’s time for me to get to bed so I can wake up in the morning and start my week over from scratch. Tomorrow I have a bunch of new items coming in that I need to find a home for. I have a few new medicine items coming in, and I have the new line of low carb items from Slim Fast. I wonder who won’t have a low carb item coming out soon?

Speaking of the low carb craze, I tried one of the new low carb tortilla wraps at Subway last week. I went for the Chicken Bacon Ranch Wrap. It was very good except that they jacked me $4.09 for it. I did enjoy it very much though and have been working very hard in my laboratory (kitchen) trying to duplicate it. I already have the low carb tortillas on hand, and I cook my chicken breast and cut it into little pieces, put a slice of bacon on it, some lettuce (which I didn’t get at Subway… the bastards) and some ranch dressing and voila… dinner is served.

I bought American Wedding Unrated Friday night. I had to drive all over town because Walmart (my best friends) only carried the R rated version, and dammit that wasn’t good enough. I ended up having to go to Sam Goody to get my copy, which was well worth it. On a side note, I picked up Season 3 of South Park at Walmart Friday night. I guess an unrated movie is too dirty for them, but a dirty cartoon is right up their alley. Fucking hypocrites.

I went to a ski hill today. You are probably wondering what in the hell I was doing at a ski hill so let me assure you, I do not ski. I went tubing with my friends. You know I almost felt like a kid again, aside from the chronic arthritis. Seriously though, I am in some minor pain, but nothing that some Icy Hot won’t take care of. I guess there should be a sign out front with a circle with the 30 in it and line through it. I must say it was nice to get outside and breathe the fresh air for a while though. Of course being outside in the winter in Wisconsin is a few steps short of being insane. Our high today was somewhere near 20. That’s 12 below freezing in case you were wondering. But there’s nothing like a little outdoor fun to get your heart beating fast, speaking of which…

I see that the government is going to put a ban on Ephedra in a little under 60 days. “We have a tremendous burden of proof in order to take supplements off of the market,” Thompson said Tuesday in announcing the ban on a supplement that has been linked to 155 deaths and dozens of heart attacks and strokes. 155 deaths and dozens of heart attacks and strokes? Dozens as in 12?
Here are some facts I’ve looked up on cigarettes… let’s compare shall we? Each year, more than 440,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. As far as the heart disease goes, 81,976 people are afflicted with it, and strokes get another 17,445 people. Hey, lets go somewhere that Ephedra doesn’t. Lung cancer will get 124,813 more people and other lung diseases will afflict 82,431 people. Other cancers will get 130,948 people.

So… how does the comparison go? I’m going to give the Ephedra people the benefit of the doubt here and go with 30 dozen, giving us 360 people, add in the 155 deaths and we have a whopping 515 deaths/strokes/heart attacks. Now, what are those cigarette numbers? To be fair I will only use the deaths and heart attack/stroke numbers which come to a jaw dropping 539,421. So I guess we ban the Ephedra that has done in slightly over 500 people and continue to sell the tobacco that has done in roughly 540,000. Good plan America, good plan.

Why would the government not want to outlaw such a horrible item that is killing so many and making them sick? The same thing that makes all top law officials look away. Dead presidents, and lots of them. Cigarettes are one of the most heavily taxed consumer products in the United States. Federal, state and local governments have a virtual monopoly on tobacco profits. With excise tax collections on cigarettes for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2002 amounting to more than $16 billion, the government made more money from the sale of cigarettes than retailers, wholesalers, farmers and manufacturers combined. Government pocketed over $74 million a day from smokers from 1998 to 2002, more tobacco tax revenue per minute than the average working family brings home in a year ($51,334 per minute vs. $42,228 per year median household income in 2001). (source) It’s always nice to know how much you are handing over to the government.
Sounds like a good plan doesn’t it? If the Ephedra would rake in profits for the government you wouldn’t find them being banned at all. And these are the same people that are keeping us safe from the oil holding terrorists?

Wild parties, lots of drinking and lots of un-remembered sex. Does that describe the total opposite of what your evening was like? Mine too. Just think of all the clean up time you’ve saved yourselves from by not partying your ass off. I’m sure plenty of people partied like there was no tomorrow. They unfortunately found out that there is a tomorrow, and most likely they will be in jail then. Hey, you only have a New Years Celebration once a year. What exactly is the point of this whole New Years celebration anyway? I would think that after the first 2000 of them, they would start to get a little old. It’s not like we don’t know which year is coming next. If we randomly picked a year or something it might add a little more excitement to the whole deal. Hey, just a quick New Year News-flash, I broke one of my resolutions already. I did not win the Powerball last night. I know that is probably a major shock to everyone but I did manage to match a few numbers. None on the same line, but if diagonals counted I’d be a fucking winner. Damn New Year.

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. Please note I am not a scientist nor do I have any working knowledge of how earthquakes work or any indication of future earthquakes that might possibly happen. I don’t know if you are truly fucked here. I cannot be held responsible for any rash actions you may take as a result of this report because as stated previously, it’s all bullshit I made up. However in the event that 2004 does become a bumper year for natural disasters, you can all suck my shit.

Had a major rip-off at the store yesterday. The Old Dutch rep told me she found seven boxes of generic Actifed buried behind the chips. When I went over to check my shelf I noticed that all my boxes of Actifed, and all generics were gone. I had absolutely nothing on my shelf. I always knew the stupid worthless fuckers could make meth out of Sudafed (pseudoephedrine), but I guess it never occurred to me that they could make it out of a Sudafed mixed with an antihistamine (pseudoephedrine & Triprolidine). I guess you learn something new every day. I can only hope that the assholes either blow their house up while they are making the shit, or they get caught selling it and go to jail for a long time. A definitely good way to end my last day of the year at my job.

Fucking people.

It’s here. The inevitable end of another year. Where the fuck did it go? Cue up the music, it’s time to have an entourage of shit from the years past. Yeah, fuck that shit. I don’t get into all of this. My attention span is way too short to remember what happened last January, hell I’ve already forgotten what I got for Christmas.

What other lame ass traditions are there for New Years? Oh yes, the resolutions. Ok, I will make some New Years Resolutions here that I’m sure I will break in roughly 12 hours or so.

I will stop downloading MP3’s.
I will stop downloading porn.
I will add a ton of new content to this page in the next few weeks.
I will stop eating crackers in bed.
I will pick that piece of dirt up off the floor.
I will get my oil changed before the smoke starts pouring out again.
I will win the Lottery.
I will get my car paid off in the next three months.
I will stop smoking… wait, I don’t smoke… mission accomplished.
I will go to great lengths to bring peace to the Earth, well if it will get me laid anyway.
I will travel the country and see all new people that can piss me off.

Well, that’s about all I can think about at the moment, but what does it matter. Much like rules, resolutions were meant to be broken. Drink up, be stupid and party like it’s 1999 (you know, before that asshole was in the White House).

Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to go through and mark Christmas down 75% while people are trying to shop it? Here I am moving shit and I constantly have people asking me how much this is, do I have anymore of this, is this the half price or is it half of this? Fuckers, back up and let me do my job. It won’t be half of anything if you don’t back away from the display and let me and my sign in there. In case you were wondering, I had this experience today. I took my Christmas and marked it down 75% and then in the middle of it apparently people got into the Holiday Spirit and decided to fuck with me. Every time I would stand up there would be someone in my spot rummaging through the shit I just spent 20 minutes arranging. Around 3:00 I just said fuck it and went off and did other stuff for the rest of my day… yes, it must be time to amend the customers suck page.

Speaking of things that piss me off at work, here’s a little snippit of something that is irritating me royally at work and something that will grace my gripes page in the future.

Prescription medications being advertised. Here is how this whole prescription thing should work. I am hurt, I go to the doctor. My doctor and his 7 year degree examines me and tells me that I am definitely in pain and that I need Vioxx. He writes me the prescription out and sends me on my way to the pharmacy where the pharmacist fills that prescription and then I go home and take my damn medicine.

Unfortunately here is how it really works. I am hurt, I go to the store because my ass is too cheap to go to the doctor. I am looking for Advil or Tylenol and then there is a thing sticking out of the shelf telling me about the wonders of Vioxx. I read the pamphlet and think that Vioxx is the best thing since sliced bread. I end up going to the doctor with this wonderful information filled pamphlet and tell a man who has a 7 year degree that this brochure knows more than him and I want Vioxx. To shut me up he writes the prescription out and sends me to the pharmacy where I get my prescription filled and then I get the bill and wonder why the hell prescription drugs are so fucking high priced in America.

At that point I realize that if Vioxx is paying to put their little brochures in every store in America and buying prime advertising space in magazines that it must cost a whole lot of money to do that. I wonder how they make all of that advertising money up? I know, they jack the consumer.

Here is the moral of the story. Prescription drugs are out there marketing themselves towards the everyday consumer like they were fucking peanut butter. As a common everyday citizen you have no fucking idea what the hell is good for you and you definitely shouldn’t be in charge of deciding which medicine you should be prescribed. If you think you do, let me ask you a question. What is the difference between Tylenol Simply Sleep (a medicine to help you sleep) and Benadryl (an antihistamine for allergies)? Absolutely nothing. The active ingredient in both of those is diphenhydramine 25mg.

If we want to stop paying high prices for prescription drugs in this country then we need to stop the drug companies from advertising. Every pamphlet you see, every pen or coffee cup you see at the doctors office or pharmacy, you’re paying for. I’ll leave it at that for now and save the rest of the bitching for the gripes page.