Monday, September 16, 2002
Getting Frisky at Ralphs
Things are getting pretty exciting at the supermarket.
As a Ralph's Club member, every time they swipe my card I get automatcially enrolled in some new savings program. The latest is with Friskies Cat Food. If I purchase 75 cans before October 6th, I'll earn $2.00 off 4 cans of Friskies! Doing the math, it turns out that I'll be saving about 3%. But they just make it so exciting: everytime I go to Ralphs, I get a statement telling me how far along I am in my quest for 75 cans! Will I make it?!
Some of you may ask, "why don't you just buy the 75 cans and be done with it?" Easier said than done, which is why this is such a challenge. For starters, I don't want to be in the checkout line looking like "the crazy cat guy" with a shopping cart full of Friskies. I may in fact BE that guy, I just don't want to LOOK like that guy. The second problem is that my cat will only eat Friskies Mixed Grill flavor, and sometimes they may only have 5 or 10 cans of that flavor on the shelf. Those of you who aren't owned by cat are thinking "just go out and buy any flavor; when the cat gets hungry enough, she'll eat it." It doesn't work that way, and I think I can explain using an analogy based upon stories from married friends: Suppose your wife sends you out for some Sprite. You come home with 7-Up instead, and she says "I thought I told you to bring home Sprite." You can tell her "it's the same thing" and she WILL drink it, but life will be much easier on you if you just run out back to the store. It's the same way with a cat.
I think I have about 20 more cans to buy in the next 3 weeks, so I should be in pretty shape. I just have to keep my focus. And I don't plan on giving those 2 dollars to the cat; I'm working hard to earn them, so I'm spending them on ME.
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Things are getting pretty exciting at the supermarket.
As a Ralph's Club member, every time they swipe my card I get automatcially enrolled in some new savings program. The latest is with Friskies Cat Food. If I purchase 75 cans before October 6th, I'll earn $2.00 off 4 cans of Friskies! Doing the math, it turns out that I'll be saving about 3%. But they just make it so exciting: everytime I go to Ralphs, I get a statement telling me how far along I am in my quest for 75 cans! Will I make it?!
Some of you may ask, "why don't you just buy the 75 cans and be done with it?" Easier said than done, which is why this is such a challenge. For starters, I don't want to be in the checkout line looking like "the crazy cat guy" with a shopping cart full of Friskies. I may in fact BE that guy, I just don't want to LOOK like that guy. The second problem is that my cat will only eat Friskies Mixed Grill flavor, and sometimes they may only have 5 or 10 cans of that flavor on the shelf. Those of you who aren't owned by cat are thinking "just go out and buy any flavor; when the cat gets hungry enough, she'll eat it." It doesn't work that way, and I think I can explain using an analogy based upon stories from married friends: Suppose your wife sends you out for some Sprite. You come home with 7-Up instead, and she says "I thought I told you to bring home Sprite." You can tell her "it's the same thing" and she WILL drink it, but life will be much easier on you if you just run out back to the store. It's the same way with a cat.
I think I have about 20 more cans to buy in the next 3 weeks, so I should be in pretty shape. I just have to keep my focus. And I don't plan on giving those 2 dollars to the cat; I'm working hard to earn them, so I'm spending them on ME.
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Irony
I picked up a movie at Blockbuster last night, and was told I had an unpaid late fee for "Memento". That's right, I forgot to return Memento.
I picked up a movie at Blockbuster last night, and was told I had an unpaid late fee for "Memento". That's right, I forgot to return Memento.
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I picked up a movie at Blockbuster last night, and was told I had an unpaid late fee for "Memento". That's right, I forgot to return Memento.
I picked up a movie at Blockbuster last night, and was told I had an unpaid late fee for "Memento". That's right, I forgot to return Memento.
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Monday, September 09, 2002
Men are from Mars, Women are from Jo Ann Fabrics
I picked up some material at the fabric store yesterday. (Yes, the fabric store. Shut up.) I brought my roll of material (or "bolt", as they like to call it) up to the cutting counter. I discovered that women go the fabric store in pairs; there were 3 pairs of women in front of me, so I assumed I was technically fourth in line. Of course, each one of them had their own material to be cut, so I was 7th in line. Whatever.
While waiting, the women chatted about all the things normal people chat about: vacations, kids, jobs. One of them gets up to the front of the line and is asked by the cutting lady "how many yards would you like?" The women then decides it's a good time to ask her friend "so how much material should I get?" "Well how many pillows are you doing?" "Three, but I was thinking of doing some throws too." "Oh, that would look lovely!" Blah blah blah. Like you couldn't have discussed this BEFORE you got to the front of the line? And then the same thing happened with the NEXT pair of women!
Compare this to men going to Home Depot or any hardware store. When men get to the front of the line, they MIGHT grunt out a "hello", but then immediately give the marching orders: "I need fifteen 18-inch dowels and this pipe needs to be 7 3/8" long with a 3/4" thread." Done.
This care-free behavior may explain why women live longer than men, but those extra years are spent waiting in line.
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I picked up some material at the fabric store yesterday. (Yes, the fabric store. Shut up.) I brought my roll of material (or "bolt", as they like to call it) up to the cutting counter. I discovered that women go the fabric store in pairs; there were 3 pairs of women in front of me, so I assumed I was technically fourth in line. Of course, each one of them had their own material to be cut, so I was 7th in line. Whatever.
While waiting, the women chatted about all the things normal people chat about: vacations, kids, jobs. One of them gets up to the front of the line and is asked by the cutting lady "how many yards would you like?" The women then decides it's a good time to ask her friend "so how much material should I get?" "Well how many pillows are you doing?" "Three, but I was thinking of doing some throws too." "Oh, that would look lovely!" Blah blah blah. Like you couldn't have discussed this BEFORE you got to the front of the line? And then the same thing happened with the NEXT pair of women!
Compare this to men going to Home Depot or any hardware store. When men get to the front of the line, they MIGHT grunt out a "hello", but then immediately give the marching orders: "I need fifteen 18-inch dowels and this pipe needs to be 7 3/8" long with a 3/4" thread." Done.
This care-free behavior may explain why women live longer than men, but those extra years are spent waiting in line.
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Friday, September 06, 2002
My boss and my boss' boss both use binaryblocks.com for their blog webhosting. Binaryblocks doesn't seem to enjoy paying their bills to their server companies, and so their plug was pulled, leaving my boss and my boss' boss without websites for a short while. Meanwhile, me and my boss' direct report are doing just fine on other hosts. The bourgeois scum were toppled by their own miserly ways. Power to the Proletariat!
(I hate to let the truth ruin a good story, but to be fair it was my boss' boss who set up my weblog for me, sans Binaryblocks.)
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(I hate to let the truth ruin a good story, but to be fair it was my boss' boss who set up my weblog for me, sans Binaryblocks.)
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Wednesday, September 04, 2002
Overblown Quote of the Week:
"(American Idol) is to 'Star Search' what modern quantum physics is to Newtonian gravitational equations."
Robert Thompson
Center for the Study of Popular Television
Syracuse University
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"(American Idol) is to 'Star Search' what modern quantum physics is to Newtonian gravitational equations."
Robert Thompson
Center for the Study of Popular Television
Syracuse University
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Tuesday, September 03, 2002
I'm doing my rounds of checking weblogs, and I go to the boss' boss' wife's page:
http://www.scarymommy.net/
There is a cute dancing person on the page, obviously drawn by one of her daughters (or possibly her husband). But in my browser, the feet were cut off by the bottom of the window. Try it. Is it just me, or is there something not quite right going on with that picture?
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http://www.scarymommy.net/
There is a cute dancing person on the page, obviously drawn by one of her daughters (or possibly her husband). But in my browser, the feet were cut off by the bottom of the window. Try it. Is it just me, or is there something not quite right going on with that picture?
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Bad, Bad, Aaron Brown
I can't take it any more; I hate Aaron Brown.
Let's start with the hair: either it's a really cheap toupee, or he hasn't used shampoo since Reaganomics. He may be sitting there on CNN trying to tell me the latest casulty reports from Afghanistan, but all I can do is stare at the top of his head and think "what IS that thing?!" I become transfixed by it. Is it alive? Is it dead? Are there any biological materials in there whatsover?
And then there's the voice. That whining, nasaly, snivelling noise that sounds like Elliot Gould with a head cold. Forget fingernails on a chalkboard. Imagine scratching your TEETH on a chalkboard. That's Aaron Brown.
You may wonder who am I to judge someone else's God-given traits. Well, I believe everything happens for a reason, and I think God gave Aaron Brown bad hair and an annoying voice as His way of saying "Dude, stay away from broadcast journalism". But Aaron Brown didn't listen. He could have become a serious journalist and work for a newspaper or even a magazine. But he chose CNN, which IS entertainment television. So don't be mad at me when Aaron Brown is the one who is going against God's will.
Lest you think I am completely shallow, his on-air persona is equally annoying. He covers many of the September 11th news, and for some reason feels that the story isn't interesting enough on its own. Rather than speaking from the heart or even the head, he speaks from the ego: he always seems to be trying to come up with the perfect sound bite which will be immortalized on a bronze plaque in Washington D.C. Shut up already.
And this flows in to a bigger problem with CNN. They are running news reports about how the news will be covering September 11th. They are interviewing their own anchors (mostly Aaron Brown) to get their feelings about 9/11. Isn't there a freshman class in journalism school where they teach you that reporters aren't supposed to become the story?
They say that as we continue see the images of the planes crashing into the towers over and over again, we become desensitized to them. That may be true. But no matter how many times I see Aaron Brown on my TV screen, I find him just as disturbing as I did a year ago.
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I can't take it any more; I hate Aaron Brown.
Let's start with the hair: either it's a really cheap toupee, or he hasn't used shampoo since Reaganomics. He may be sitting there on CNN trying to tell me the latest casulty reports from Afghanistan, but all I can do is stare at the top of his head and think "what IS that thing?!" I become transfixed by it. Is it alive? Is it dead? Are there any biological materials in there whatsover?
And then there's the voice. That whining, nasaly, snivelling noise that sounds like Elliot Gould with a head cold. Forget fingernails on a chalkboard. Imagine scratching your TEETH on a chalkboard. That's Aaron Brown.
You may wonder who am I to judge someone else's God-given traits. Well, I believe everything happens for a reason, and I think God gave Aaron Brown bad hair and an annoying voice as His way of saying "Dude, stay away from broadcast journalism". But Aaron Brown didn't listen. He could have become a serious journalist and work for a newspaper or even a magazine. But he chose CNN, which IS entertainment television. So don't be mad at me when Aaron Brown is the one who is going against God's will.
Lest you think I am completely shallow, his on-air persona is equally annoying. He covers many of the September 11th news, and for some reason feels that the story isn't interesting enough on its own. Rather than speaking from the heart or even the head, he speaks from the ego: he always seems to be trying to come up with the perfect sound bite which will be immortalized on a bronze plaque in Washington D.C. Shut up already.
And this flows in to a bigger problem with CNN. They are running news reports about how the news will be covering September 11th. They are interviewing their own anchors (mostly Aaron Brown) to get their feelings about 9/11. Isn't there a freshman class in journalism school where they teach you that reporters aren't supposed to become the story?
They say that as we continue see the images of the planes crashing into the towers over and over again, we become desensitized to them. That may be true. But no matter how many times I see Aaron Brown on my TV screen, I find him just as disturbing as I did a year ago.
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