Five Part Trilogy

Oh...Shit.

2009-07-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

When the train pulls up to the designated stop, there is a small gap between the train and the platform; maybe six inches. We were on the train the other night when a woman, attempting to walk on board, drops her phone, which falls perfectly through the gap onto the tracks under the train. All she could do was stare at all the passengers with her jaw dropped and a look that clearly said, "no fucking way that just happened." She stood on the platform and held that look as the doors of the train closed and we pulled away from the station.

Walking Around, Looking Around

2009-07-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

This morning, the wife and I went out to hit a really bitchin' deli we found the other day. Driving was necessary to get there, so we took a deep breath and got in the car. There's a couple of reasons why I am nervous about driving here. One is that the streets don't make any fucking sense whatsoever. They start out as a two lane, then merge down to one for about a block, then expand back to two. Half the streets are one way, and the other drivers on the road are all fucking crazy. Luckily I only almost killed us once. I'm not sure if this is something that I'll get used to, or if I just give up on driving all together. We'll see.

After we got back, I dropped the wife off so she could do some reading and I went down to the trains so I could check out Chinatown. I'm not sure if I just went the wrong way out of the station, but Chinatown kinda sucked. Nothing there really notable at all except for a really creepy looking porno store which I did not go inside. I kept walking and found a street called Newberry which was lined with shops and stores. What I want to know is, why is it when you have lived somewhere for a while, nobody asks you for directions, but when you are brand new to a place, everyone thinks you know what's going on? I was stopped by no fewer than five people while I was walking asking how to get somewhere or where the nearest station was. I guess I was doing a good job not looking like a tourist, which is kind of what I was going for. I walked and shopped for a while until I found my way to the Boston Public Library, which is the biggest library I've ever seen in real life. Across the way from the library was a little area with tents set up where a small farmers market was going on. I perused the tents, resisting the urge to buy a fresh pie or loaf of bread because I figure this sort of thing goes on all the time, I'm sure and I sure as hell didn't want to walk around with a pie in one hand. I found a really neat little wine store called Best Cellars and picked up a bottle for the wife and headed back home. The best thing is that I was outside walking around for at least four hours and never once broke a sweat. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get my ass handed to me come winter, but I'm going to brag about the summer while I can.

We're going to watch the Red Sox play this evening at a sports bar across the street from Fenway. The sports fan thing is very new to both the wife and myself, so it'll be interesting to see how well we do.

Let's start again for the first time

2009-07-23T18:26:00.000-07:00

I swear, I swear, I swear I am going to keep up with this. I know I've said it before, but this time I mean it.

The wife and I just packed our stuff and moved to Boston. I plan on logging this adventure, which is why I am now so adamant about making an entry more than twice a year.

It all started when the wife got accepted into law school. I asked for a transfer, we sold our house, moved in with the in-laws for about a month, threw the cats in the car and proceeded to make the four day trip.

The trip was actually pretty enjoyable. We broke it up fairly well so we wouldn't subject the cats to too much car time at once, and we got to experience some nice local eateries in the evenings. We got into Boston on Tuesday and made it in to our new apartment. This place is very cool, though I can't get past the hotel feel it has. I say this because it's a high rise apartment. We're on the eighth floor, so we have to take the elevator up to our place. The door is even weighted like a hotel room door. We don't have our stuff yet, either, so living out of a suitcase at the moment doesn't help the feeling that we don't really live here. I think once our furniture arrives and we can sleep in an actual bed it will begin to feel a bit more like home.

I took the train to my new store today to introduce myself and see how easy the train ride would be. I really hate to have to drive to work, mainly because I'd have to go straight through Boston proper, which is just asking for death.

The train was easy and I made it to my store just fine. My new boss actually seems decent, but the store on the other hand is a wreck. Apparently, the manager before him let the store go to shit and beyond, complete with a mouse infestation and some really colorful employees. I'm sure I'll be able to write more about the cashier with the 8" long fingernails and the employee with Tourettes down the line.

Tomorrow the wife wants to study a bit, so I'm going to get out of her hair and explore downtown a little. We'll see how that goes.

The Most Embarrassing Thing I've Done All Week

2008-10-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

After work I went over to the gym to get in a workout and miss traffic simultaneously. I was somewhat excited because I just bought a swim suit the other day so I could try swimming laps as a form of cardio instead of the normal treadmill type stuff I've been doing. I went into the locker room and donned my new trunks, put my glasses in my locker, grabbed my towel and went to the pool. I haven't been swimming in I don't know how long, and I must say...I don't remember it being this hard. By my sixth lap I was exhausted, but made it to the other side of the pool and somehow managed to only swallow three good mouthfuls of pool water on the way. I got out feeling disoriented and slightly sick, grabbed my towel and began to dry off a bit.

Now remember, I left my glasses in my locker, and without them I'm more or less like Velma in the Scooby-Doo cartoons. So I wander into the locker room and make it to the shower area when I start to wonder why the showers are suddenly on the opposite side from where they usually are. I pause for a moment and try and figure this one out when it hits me.

I was in the women's locker room.

Not only was I in the women's locker room, I was in the women's shower area. I spin around and as stealthily and quickly as a pervert ninja I disappear back through the doorway and slink around the corner into the MEN'S locker room. Wondering how they were going to tell me that my membership is revoked for peeping in on the ladies, I changed into my normal workout clothes and walked out onto the floor like nothing happened. I half expected to see a number of women talking frantically with the muscled up trainers and then all turn and point at me as I came out. Luckily, this scenario never came up, and as far as I know nobody saw my blunder. I'm able to live to embarrass myself another day.

The Age Old Question

2008-09-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

I've been buying a lot of Molson Canadian beer lately, not only because it is delicious, but because they have been putting "would you rather" style questions on the labels. I pulled out a bottle when I got home this evening from a lousy day at work and immediately read the question that would make me ponder the answer for way longer than any query on a beer bottle should.

"Would you prefer to be a vampire or a werewolf?"

Lets think on this for a minute. What versions of these creatures of the night are we talking about? Is the vampire a hideous recluse like Nosferatu or a suave bachelor who gets the next door neighbors teenage girlfriend like in Fright Night? Do I mope around and go through my undead existence with nothing but sorrow and regret like an Anne Rice character, or do I live a rock n' roll lifestyle and start a gang of vampires with bitchin' hair and dangly earrings like the Lost Boys? Is there a young blonde girl skilled in the martial arts who will stake me as soon as I claw my way out of my grave, or do I get to shape shift into bats and wolves and shit?

Now lets weigh the werewolves. This is a slimmer category, to be sure. Am I going to lose all control and let the beast inside me take over when the moon is full so I wake up naked in the zoo with no fucking idea what happened the night before,
or can I change whenever the fuck I want to and I'd pretty much be the same as when I was human, only I'd be really good at basketball? Do I get to keep the enhanced hearing and sense of smell while I'm in human form? Does it hurt when I morph? In the movies it always looks like it hurts.

My answer to the question after much speculation is this.

It depends.

If we're talking Lost Boys, Fright Night, or Dracula, I'll take the vampire no question; but I'd choose the wolf over the other vamps. Even if I have to lock myself up for 3 or so nights of the month, at least I can live a semi-normal life otherwise. Besides, werewolves are mortal when it comes down to it. I'm not how well I would cope with immortality. Seems like blood would get wicked old after about a month. At least werewolves can get a cheeseburger or a decent steak when the craving hits.

This was all because of a beer label.

Five Questions

2007-07-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

The wife was handed five questions from Mob and has asked me to formulate answers of my own here and let the world see them and judge me. Here goes...

1. What got you into the blog world in the first place; was it something you read about, did you know someone who did it, etc?

It would be a horrible lie to even try to say that I have a foot in the blog world. I wander in every few months with a post and hope that my wife tells people that I wrote something new. I would like to get into some sort of steady blogging rhythm, but right now I just really don't have the time or discipline to do so. Maybe after I start working closer to home...IF I ever start working closer to home.

2. What was the first film you bought with your own money to watch over and over again, be it on DVD, VHS, Betamax...and is it a film that you still like today?

The first film I ever owned was given as a Christmas gift...a VHS copy of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, for which I actually do still have a warm nostalgic place in my heart. The first one I bought with my own money, I believe, was The Nightmare Before Christmas. I still watch that one at least once a year and know all the songs by heart.

3. Since celebs always want to speak for the world about how we should be pitching in and saving the world, who would you choose to represent us the best?

Henry Rollins has a way of making a point in such a way that you kinda feel like an asshole if you disagree with him. He has a way with words like no other, and is physically intimidating enough to get the job done.

4. What do you think is the most unlikely comic-book to film translation, the one that no one will ever be able to translate properly? (No fair cheating and naming the existing ones that shouldn't have been made...)

I have two here.

Milk and Cheese is a brilliant comic book, but the content could never be a two hour long feature film.

The other is Lobo. In order to do a Lobo movie with any justice or accuracy, it would be too violent and gory to receive the R rating. In the comics I've seen him stuff a fat man feet first into a toilet until just his head is visible, remove a victim's jaw with his hook, and rip a guy's arm off and beat him with it. But, hey, they've been getting away with some fucked up shit in the movies these days, so who knows.

5. Tell me the type of music that you like least, then tell me the artist from that genre that you find the least annoying. The lesser of two evils, if you will

I have to agree with the wife and say that the modern R&B is the worst thing since Syphilis. I remember working at a music store and it blew my mind to see how many fans R Kelly had. That mother fucker is the most boring, every song is the damn same, makes me want to drill holes into my own head to drown out the music, no talent ass clown I have ever seen with a record deal. The one that I can tolerate the most off the top of my head would be Macy Gray. She's a pretty groovy lady with a smokey voice that I can almost get down with.

There you have it. I'll have a new blog in the next couple of months. Stay tooned!

How To Make A Monstrosity

2007-04-18T17:06:00.000-07:00

In life, I expect a pretty good number of movies to be re-made. Some remakes are done pretty well, such as Dawn of the Dead, The Thing, The Fly, and The Birdcage.
Other films, such as The Fog, The Pink Panther, Planet of the Apes, and Psycho were re-made without reason, and the newer version becomes an abomination serving no purpose except to piss off an entire audience. If the original movie can't be improved upon in any way, then don't bother trying to make it again. Leave it the fuck alone.

I'm talking to you, Rob Zombie. I can't believe the audacity of this man, thinking doing a remake of Halloween is a good idea. If he is such a hard core fan of the genre, he of all people should know better than to go and fuck around with such a classic film. This is proof for me that Mr. Zombie doesn't have an original idea in his head when it comes to making movies.
House of 1,000 Corpses was a blatant rip-off of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Devil's Rejects was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I think I might know some people who will disagree with that last statement, but I'm sorry; the dialogue was shit ("I am the devil, and I do the devil's work.") and the "tutti-fuckin'-fruity" scene made me want to rip my eyes out and throw them at the screen. Fuck you, Rob Zombie. Fuck you in your stupid ass.

Not Even a Wedding Cake

2007-04-14T15:59:00.000-07:00

This girl that works for us up at the store comes in to work the other week and announces that she got married the night before. She and her boyfriend had a shotgun wedding in front of the Justice of the Peace and made their vows to be together forever. She is 20 years old. Her husband is 18. Her husband is also still in fucking high school. Apparently not a whole lot fazes me anymore because all I said when I heard this was, "That's nice. Congratulations, I guess."

Skipping ahead a few weeks...

We get an application in the store from some guy looking for a part time cashier gig. One of our other managers looks it over and says, "I think this is whatshername's boyfriend or husband or whatever." Long story short, we can't hire the kid if his wife is working in the same building. I don't really think twice about it because his application kind of sucked anyways. A few days later she stops me and the following conversation takes place...

Her: "If Whatshisname can't work here, can he still apply at another location?
Me: "Hold on. Who are we talking about?"
Her: "My boyfriend."
Me: "Is he your boyfriend or your husband?"
Her: "Sorry. My husband. I still keep in the habit of calling him 'boyfriend' because my parents still don't know."
Me: "Are you serious? Don't you think your mom will be even more upset if she finds out you got married and have BEEN married for however long without telling her? I'd be pissed. Never mind. It's none of my business. Yes, he can apply at another store, but he can not work at this location."
Her: "Okay. I didn't know that was an issue since we don't live together."
Me: "..."

Crazy as a Fish

2007-01-11T18:41:00.000-08:00

The other day the craziest most fucked up lady came in the store. I overheard her talking to a girl in our specialty department asking when we would get more betta fish in. I intervened and told her that we should get some in on Thursday and she proceeded to tell me...

"You know, I have a big tank with about twenty bettas inside. Male and female and they all get along. They play with each other all day and when they see me, they all swim to the top of the water and blow me kisses. Also, they all have names, and swim to the top when I call them by name. I'll put food in the water and they will sit there watching me and they won't start eating until I say 'okay'.
I also have a dragon fish, and when I put my hand in the water, it will swim over and lay in my palm so I can pet it. The only other fish that I have is a catfish that stays at the bottom, but when I call, 'here kitty, kitty', he swims up to the top to greet me."

I was watching her face while she spat all this out looking for a 'just kidding' wink or something. She was serious. After she left, I asked the employee if she had ever seen her before, and she said that she comes in more and more often. In fact, if they see her coming, they snatch up and hide the bettas because she always makes them change the water as she waits and watches, making sure we treat the fish with the proper care and respect. I also come to find out that she is convinced that her phone is tapped by the government so she doesn't use her phone anymore.

Ahhh, retail.

Wait, I'm not done.

After I fought the insanity from oozing into my own cerebral cortex, the phone rings and a customer is on the other end wanting to know if we have a certain patio dog door. I check in the back and tell him we do. He says he's on his way and I hang up. These patio doors are about eight feet tall and come in a cardboard box with about five tabs holding it shut. It's behind a few things, so I heft it over my head and carry it out to the middle of the backroom. As I'm moving it, I hear something inside that sounds to me like it might be broken and the pieces of glass are sliding around. I lay it down and undo the tabs. As I open the lid, no fewer than thirty roaches scatter in all directions.
They run left, right, over the lid, over my hands, EVERYWHERE! I stop myself from freaking the fuck out and drop the lid back shut. I compose myself long enough to call the other manager back to the backroom. He walks back and asks 'what's up?' "Watch this." I tell him, as I lift the lid again. Again, roaches scatter at the sight of the hideous light and the other manager screams, "Holy shit!" and starts stomping on the fuckers as fast as his feet would move. I join him until we were left with a graveyard of smooshed roach corpses. I've been in the mood to watch Creepshow ever since.

Hangin' on the corner of 52nd and Broadway

2007-01-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

Let's see if I can get back into the regular blog world. I've been away for too long.

New York was bitchin'. For someone who has never traveled it was a very surreal place to go. There were so many landmarks and buildings that I have seen in movies and television that I was getting to see up close and personal like the restaurant that Jerry and friends would frequent in Seinfeld, Rockefeller Center, and the archway at Washington Park to name a few.

The idea that New Yorkers are mean is a misconception also. They were all really friendly. I witnessed a couple of guys give up their seat on the subway to women, doors were held open for you, and I even got a few apologies after being bumped. I have to admit that before going I kept picturing the episode of The Simpsons where Homer was recapping his one NY experience where he gets robbed by a thug, robbed by a cop, robbed by a seagull, then falls down a manhole and chased by C.H.U.D.s. Lady M's friend, Drew, said that it may have been bad ten years ago, but now it is a very safe city, especially after 9-11. Now if a lady gets her purse snatched on the street, ten other people will be there to tackle the guy.

This was also the first time that I met Drew. He has been one of Lady M's best friends for years and I have heard plenty about him, but now I finally got to put a face with the name. He played a perfect host to us and really went out of his way to make us comfortable and show us around the city. He is also filled with little random facts about the city that you won't find in the guidebooks that made the experience that much more fulfilling. He pointed out illegal cabs, one of the original subway stations that used to have crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling until they got stolen, and the grid in the middle of intersections that has the power to get your license suspended if you stop your car anywhere on it. Also, if it weren't for him, we would have spent half the time just looking for places and getting lost as the wife and I both have absolutely no sense of direction. We were able to see Battery Park, Wall Street, Ground Zero, Times Square, Washington Park, Little Italy, Chinatown, Central Park, FAO Schwartz, Trinity Church, St. Patrick's Cathedral, The Metropolitan Museum, Tiffany's, Rockefeller Center, we had coffee in Trump Tower, M took a picture of the Louis Vuitton building for Mob's wife, we bought hotdogs from a street vendor, had New York pizza, went to Anthony Bourdain's restaurant, looked at the apartments in the Upper East Side, went to Columbia University, saw a Broadway play, went to a cupcake shop that was made famous by Sex and the City, had brunch at the trendiest gay spot in NY, went to a pier overlooking Jersey and Hoboken, and went to a sex shop where a Bronx girl was more than willing to go into great detail about some of the toys.

After all that, we were still coming up with a list of stuff that we want to do next time. I still have to eat at the Soup Nazi's kitchen, dammit.

Thanksgiving To The Extreme

2006-11-24T07:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had to get up at around 5:30am so I could meet the adoption people up at the store at 7:00 so they could feed and clean the cats. I fell asleep at the desk waiting for them and at 9:00 she wakes me up and we leave. I am supposed to meet my parents at The Browns' house in Garland around noon to have lunch and catch up with everyone. Some of you may have met The Browns at the wedding. They were dressed as the Bushes and find a way to make most conversations a little uncomfortable. They are perfectly nice people, and they mean well, but if you don't know them as well as I do, a visit with them can be close to dental surgery.

So, it's 9:00 and I have three hours to kill. I go to Starbucks and grab a coffee and a newspaper and sit down to do the crossword. I get done with that and look at my watch. 9:30. I decide to say 'fuck it' and go ahead and start my way over to The Browns' house. I stop and pick up some beer and a bottle of wine to show thanks for their hospitality and arrive at their door a little after 10:00. I helped a little in the kitchen, we went through some wedding pictures I had brought, and finally my parents arrived.

Lunch was nice; traditional Thanksgiving spread with polite conversation. Afterwards I went to the couch and fell asleep sitting up whilst my dad and Mr. Brown watched the game on television. After I woke up, I spent a few hours talking with my parents and then started my way over to the wife's parents' house for round two. The dinner conversation was completly different than what I experienced with lunch. Lunch had talks of world issues and Christianity, where dinner had discussions of bi-sexuality and movies. After dinner I watched a little bit of Boyz N Tha Hood until the wife came in and put in Mystery Date. We made it about twenty minutes past the Gwar scene when we decided to call it a night.

Today, we are going to the mall. We'll see how that goes.

Honeymoon part 2

2006-11-14T17:29:00.000-08:00

Well, the wife covered the honeymoon pretty well, so I won't get too much further into it. The shops around town were quite interesting, as all of their signs seemed to be hand written and mostly clever. There was an ice cream shop called "Amy's" that had a crudely drawn robot on a chalkboard outside that said, "I'll kill those zombies with my laser beams", followed by "Zombies Vs. Robot" written on the front door. We went into a store called "Toy Joy", which to my disappointment was not a sex shop, but an actual toy store. They had some really cool things, though, from a ninja clock with flying ninja pendulum, to a 'crazy cat lady' action figure and an 'albino bowler' action figure. There was also a shop that was filled with nothing but hot sauce. We went in there for some change for the meter at first. The guy seemed really put out that I interrupted his magazine reading to get some quarters. After I fed the meter, we went back inside and the first thing I did was knock a bottle of sauce off the top shelf and watched it in slow motion as it shattered on the floor. I resisted my impulse to run and instead apologized and offered to pay for the broken bottle. He went to get the broom and dust pan, muttering something under his breath the whole time. He probably put some kind of voodoo curse on me that I don't know about yet. Oh well. Fuck him, he sucks.

Other than that, it's the same old thing. We are getting ready for Christmas at the store, so we are cluttering up the aisles with even more crap than usual. People actually buy their damn pets Christmas presents. Christmas squeaky toys, Christmas rawhide, and Christmas scratching posts for cats in the shape of reindeer. I'm not kidding. Buying that stuff is just going to make your pet feel bad for not getting you anything.

Honeymoon Part 1

2006-11-05T15:28:00.000-08:00

Now that there is no wedding looming and the housework can slow down a little, I am going to have a chance to write a bit more regular here. Anyways, here's the honeymoon.

Sunday we got up from our overnight stay at the very nice Adolphus hotel in downtown Dallas and drove down to Austin. We got there a little too early to check in, so we pulled into one of the wife's historic barbecue places for lunch. I go and use the bathroom and there's a customer in there inching his way to the door as there is a strange man at the sink talking to him. The customer breaks free, and as I go to wash my hands the guy starts in on me. Something about how the restaurant is short handed and this is his seventh day straight working and he might just have to quit if they don't respect him. "Sounds great!" I say and dash out the door to the table. I tell the wife about my new friend, we order our food and some beer, and she goes to use the facilities herself. While she's away, the guy comes out of the bathroom, spots me, and walks over and starts talking sports. "Uh-huh." I reply to whatever it is he just said and stare really hard at the local newspaper we grabbed on the way inside. He gives up, realizing that I am not the "someone new" his psychic friend told him about and he pushes his cart of bathroom stocking gear away from me and out of my sight.

After lunch we go and check into the motel. The sign above the main office looks like a giant penis with the words "Austin Motel" going across it. We get our room, which was small but cozy, and hang out for a little while to relax and watch a little bit of Beetlejuice on television.

That night we go to a really nice little restaurant called Hudson's on the Bend, which is famous for their odd selection of meat entrees. We started with an appetizer called the Creature Feature, which was five different animals on one plate each served with it's own dipping sauce. There was salmon, duck pate, venison sausage, alligator, and kangaroo. All of these animals died for a tasty purpose except for the kangaroo. It was like beef jerky that was spit on, dipped in a bag of salt and served. Absolutely horrible. The rest of the evening, on the other hand was excellent. The wife had venison and I had lamb, after which we drove back to the motel to call it an evening.

More on the honeymoon to come.

Oh, and yesterday I shaved my head. I'll have to ask Skincarver where to get my membership card.

Ball N' Chain

2006-11-03T15:50:00.000-08:00

I am officially married now. I am a husband. I have a wife. I can now say things like, "I'm waiting for my wife", "Let me ask the wife", "The wife won't let me", and "It's the wife's fault." Let me run down the past week for you.

Saturday, the day of the wedding, I get up, do a few minor touchings up around the house as we are going to be having a wedding in the living room in the next few hours. The things on my list of things to do this day are take Lady M's friend, Nell, to go get a costume, pick up the boar meat from our friend in Lewisville, and come back and get hitched. Easy enough.

I get Kiwi Derek and Nell in the car and we go off to the Halloween store to find her costume. We go in and it's an absolute mad house. Nell is overwhelmed by the selection of costumes to be had. I guess in Canada they don't take Halloween as seriously as we do. As we are browsing around Derek and I are commenting on the women's costumes, in that all the costumes for the ladies were slutty as hell. Slutty Alice in Wonderland, slutty Red Riding Hood, slutty nurse, slutty devil, etc. God forbid a woman wants to wear something that covers her ass on this holiday. Derek looks over and sees that the wait to check out is getting to be longer than a Six Flags roller coaster line so he jumps in to save a spot while she finds something. I go find Nell to see how she's doing. She wanted a Cleopatra style costume but couldn't find anything on a budget so I suggest she get something with wings. They have plenty of slutty fairy costumes, after all. We find a Tinkerbell outfit that works to her satisfaction just as Derek gets to the head of the line. She pays and we go. They are starving, so we stop at a Sonic as they had both never been. No Sonics in Canada or New Zealand? Weird. Nell is stunned that she can get a breakfast burrito at 1:00 in the afternoon and Derek takes full advantage of their milkshake selection. I, on the other hand, can't eat as my stomach is starting to get an army of butterflies in it. They finish eating and we jump in the car to go to Lewisville. In good traffic, this entire trip to get the food should take about two hours. We get there around 3:00 and Brandon is just finishing up. He did a fantastic job and went above and beyond what I was expecting, especially since he had his own Halloween bash going on later that evening that he had to get ready for. We get the food loaded up and find out that we have to make a stop at Wal Mart to get some burner things to keep the food warm. This pleases Nell because she needs to find some stockings for her costume and we should also pick up some ice now that we're thinking about it. We race off as time is getting to be an issue. Traffic was good except for the bed that had fallen off somebody's truck and exploded as it hit the street. Luckily, only smart people were driving that day and it wasn't an issue to get around. We get a call from Lady M asking us to pick up her friends Michael and Emily on the way back. It's on the way, so we swing by, they cram in, and we are off to Wall Mart. The place is worse than the costume store. Bastard kids crying in the middle of aisles, worthless employees standing in your way, huge lines at every register with cashiers that don't give a fuck about anything. I can't blame them, though, I'd be acting the same way for $5.75 an hour. We split up to get the shit faster and we meet up in the hunting section. They don't have the burner things we came for. It is now less than a hour before I'll be saying my vows. I start to panic a little. Luckily I had four people there with clear heads to help me through it. They suggested we just keep the food in the oven and it'll stay warm and everything will be fine. We go to the checkout line and slowly get through. We get to the house with about twenty minutes till the wedding starts so I can pay the Reverend, get changed, throw up, and get married.

I fight through the crowd of family and friends wishing I had time to greet them properly, and open the drawer to find the marriage license to find it's not there. I am two seconds away from seriously freaking out. After a few minutes of digging, the Reverend tells me to worry about it later and to get changed. Mob and Rob join me in the spare bedroom to help me get dressed as Derek runs back and forth from us to the master bedroom where Lady M is getting ready gathering bits and pieces of my costume until it is complete. We run out and begin the ceremony. I'm worried that I'll miss my cue to say something as my train of thought is something like, "Pretty girl in front of me. People staring at me. Kid playing with a pumpkin. This guy is talking about love. Did I eat anything today? Pay attention. What was that about the rings?" The whole thing was over about that quick. After the vows and rings and kissing we got to tend to the guests. I run around and greet everyone that I wasn't able to before. I find my mother and tell her that we can't find the license to which she tells me that they found it and are filling it out as we speak. That was the last of my worries. I am free to enjoy the evening.

I'll get into the honeymoon later. This filled up more space than I thought. Thanks to everyone who helped and attended. To those that couldn't make it, there will be pictures soon.

House Work and Interviews

2006-10-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

We have three weeks before the wedding. That's not very much time. It still feels like we have a lot of shit to do. It'll happen though. That's pretty much been my life lately. If anyone asks, "Hey man, whatcha been up to?" The answer is always "work and getting the house ready". Oh well, at least I get a wife out of this in the end.

Work has been stressful. We promoted one of our stockers to support manager, which basically means he can open and close the store and will have a handful of other responsibilities. We'll see how that works out. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. Anyways, he goes on vacation starting Monday. He's been planning it for a couple of months. My idiot boss last week decides that he is also going to go on vacation starting Monday. Thanks, pal, that leaves us with three managers for the week along with the possibility of an overnight floor waxing which has been on the calendar for over a month. Fucker.

I had an interview with a young girl the other day. She was applying for our specialty department which deals with all the animals in the store. The specialty manager sat in on the interview and things were going fine. I was asking all the pre-printed questions that corporate wants us to ask which is really just the same question phrased seven different ways. I asked her, "What do you feel your greatest accomplishment is in work or school?" She said, "I did really good in English class last semester." For some reason I couldn't let it go so I heard myself say, "Well. You did really well in English." The specialty manager was looking at me with her mouth hanging open and the poor girl looked mortified. We felt obligated to hire her after that. She starts Monday.

House Work and Horror Movies

2006-09-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

It's been almost a month since my last post. I'm sure you have probably read about the reasoning on Wine When Drunk From A Mug, but in case you haven't, it seems the previous owners of this house had their internet service scheduled to get cut off in mid September. The fuckers moved out a month ago but they continued their service an extra three weeks. This means that we had about a 24 hour window when we first moved in to use the internet before the server figured out that our modem was not supposed to be hooked up at this location, so we got locked out of the information superhighway until very recently. I have a lot of catching up to do.

The house is coming along swimmingly. We have painted most of what we wanted to paint. I've poisoned the back yard because it's more weeds than grass. Not the nice weeds either. The ones with the little stickers that get all over you and then you track them inside and step on them as soon as you take your shoes off. Those kind. They're dead now. Not so clever anymore, are you, you fucking pricker weed bastards? We also had to take down a couple of ceiling panels in the sun room due to mold. I called Rob over for that one last weekend. We got some beer and started tearing shit up. The job, as usual, was bigger than what we had anticipated. It turned out that they had built the roof to sit on top of two out of three of these panels we were after. We didn't notice this until we had ripped one of the fuckers clean in half so there was no going back. Oh well. We got the things down and the replacement panels we bought don't match the remaining old ones at all. Who looks at the ceiling anyways?

We also got satellite the other day. We opted for the bronze high definition package, and I'm so glad we did. This thing has a channel called Monsters HD which is 24 hours of uncut horror flicks. They play everything from Nightmare on Elm Street to Aliens to anything with Vincent Price in it. They also seem to run the movies in themes. The other day they played six mummy movies in a row, and not a single one of them was the Brendon Frazier one.

Speaking of horror movies, now that I'm back online I need to come up with some new reviews for the BSL. I have a movie called The Tooth Fairy that I Netflixed which will be reviewed soon.

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

2006-08-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

I am back from vacation. I went back to work today, so it's official. Let me sum up the past week.

Thursday morning Lady M and I signed a bunch of papers saying that we are now homeowners. We own a house. We live in a neighborhood on a street with other people who own houses. We are grown-ups now.

Anyways, after the house buying, we ran a few errands then got me to the airport so I could fly to Wyoming. My plane was delayed due to a technical something or other and they weren't sure if it would be able to fly. They might be able to get everyone on another flight or we might have to wait until 9:00pm. As she tells me this, I look at my watch and notice that it is barely 5:00. Thank God they got us on the earlier flight. I make it to Wyoming at around 11:00 and was picked up by my grandfather, my dad, and my brother. We went home and called it a night.

The next day my dad, brother, and I woke up and met my uncle to go fishing. My uncle is one of the toughest men I've ever met. He's a cowboy. He rides horses, herds cattle, grows barley, chews Copenhagen, builds fences, drives a pickup truck, and anything else cowboys do, he does. He reminds me of the character, Gus, from the Lonesome Dove novel. A few years ago his horse threw him and he broke his neck. Legend has it he finished the days work and went to bed and when he couldn't move in the morning he figured out something was wrong. He got rid of that horse.

Back to the fishing trip. We went out on the boat and spent the afternoon on the lake. We caught nine fish and went back to my grandparent's house for a family photo that my mother had set up. We got back early, so we cleaned the fish and changed clothes for the pictures. The photographer shows up and we pose for about thirty minutes and then it's over. My aunt and uncle go back to their place and later we all go over there so we could borrow their four wheelers and my grandfather wanted to borrow one of his pistols for the fishing trip he had planned for us the next day. Apparently the place we were going to go fishing is an area where bears are a threat and he wanted to take the gun with him just in case. He asked my uncle where he should aim if a bear does try and murder us and he responds with, "Aim for the chest. If you shoot him in the head, the bullet will glint off his skull and make him mad." I stood there for a minute to absorb that little bit of information. I later tell my uncle that I ran across a rattlesnake rattle he had given me years and years ago on one of my visits while packing some boxes the other day. My brother asks what the best way to kill a rattlesnake is to which he replies, "It's really hard to shoot a rattlesnake. When they're all coiled up the can feel the reverberations from the gun and actually dodge the bullet. Hitting it with your rope is your best bet." Bears have bullet-proof heads and snakes can use the Matrix. Why do all the scary animals have super powers?

The next day, my grandfather, dad, brother, and I get up and go to a place called Bubba's for breakfast. I got a pancake that was bigger than my plate. Seriously, it sagged over the edges and touched the table. We ate and then drove down to the river where we were going fishing and started walking down the bank. My grandfather had the gun on his hip like Wyatt fucking Earp the whole time. As we walked and fished, we saw a beaver swimming in the river and later came across a badger. I must be way too used to city life because having a badger staring at you from ten feet away seemed really surreal in a way. The fishing trip was a bust. My brother caught one but that was the only luck we had. That was fine, though, because I was enjoying the scenery and cool weather more than anything else.

My last day there, we got up and went to church. Afterwards my parents and I went into town to shop for a couple of hours. Cody is a huge tourist trap so most of the shops are filled with campy t-shirts with a cartoon moose or buffalo on them or cheaply made trinkets and baubles that nobody really wants. There was one store that was wicked awesome, though. It was called the Reindeer Ranch and it had normal decorative things for the house, but it also had a crap load of Christmas and Halloween stuff. Really bitchin' stuff that you can't find anywhere else. I bought the little woman a really keen coffee mug with a girl on it with big springy eyes that reminded me of the Scary Godmother books and it has a little spider hanging off the handle. I also got a crazy looking ceramic bobble headed witch that I had to have. I think the shop is fairly new because I went to the website and they don't have a whole lot listed there which sucks because I was going to link to it here so then at least two more people would know about it.

That night we had the big barbecue to celebrate my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary. We ate steak that came from cows that my aunt and uncle used to own, looked at old photos, played horseshoes, and watched my two year old nephew do two year old things. The whole trip was spectacular and the only other thing I could have wished for would have been for the wife to be there too. Oh well. I plan on taking her up there one day, hopefully sooner than later.

Interview Hell

2006-08-20T18:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the boss man and I were doing interviews for a couple of positions up at the store. One is worth mentioning.

This young girl, probably about sixteen, comes in and we go and sit down in the break room. I look over her application and notice that she has not listed any prior work experience. I ask if this is going to be her first job and she tells me that she actually worked at a Braums slinging ice cream for all of a month. When inquiring why she left, she proceeded to tell me that she didn't like the customers. She had to deal with demanding and mean people, which she couldn't handle, so she quit. I was picturing some irate fat man at the ice cream counter screaming till he was red in the face, "I SAID TWO SCOOPS DAMMIT! TWOOO!" I then explained to her that we get a variety of assholes every day and that she would be the first one they go to as a cashier. She assures me that she would be able to handle it. I move on.

We talk for a while about this and that and I ask her what her hobbies are and what she likes to do in her spare time. She instantly blurts out that she does not feel that she is in the right place to have a boyfriend at this particular time and that she dated a guy for a couple of weeks but they broke up, though they are now still friends. I wondered for a second what I had actually asked. I move on.

She expresses some interest in taking care of animals so we proceed into the following conversation which spirals downward until I felt as though I was talking to a child.

Me: "Are there any animals you are afraid of?"
Her: "Dogs. I'm scared of dogs."
Me: "You realize that this is a pet supply store and people bring in their dogs quite often."
Her: "I know. I'm not afraid of small dogs."
Me: "Some people bring in big dogs. A lot."
Her: "Oh."
Me: "Is there any other animal that makes you uncomfortable?"
Her: "I like small fuzzy animals."
Me: "What about reptiles?"
Her: "As long as they stay in their cage. I don't like snakes."
Me: "We don't sell snakes."
Her: "I went to a pet store once and they were selling poisonous snakes."
Me: "No they didn't."
Her: "Yes they did. I saw them. They were the red and black and yellow kind. They're poisonous."
Me: "The coral snake is poisonous, but the king snake is not. They look almost identical."
Her: "I still don't like snakes."
Me: "I saw Snakes On A Plane last night."
Her: "Do you ever let the cats out and play with them and pet them?"
Me: "No."

At this point I started to look around for the hidden cameras.

Kick it one time, boy

2006-08-17T22:24:00.000-07:00

By request, here's the Vanilla Ice story.

Back around 1999 I was a young art school student in the Dallas area working at a Wherehouse Music in the evenings and on weekends. One particular evening, right when we were about to close, this guy with short blonde hair and forearm tattoos brings a stack of gangsta rap CDs to the front counter. I start ringing them up, scanning Ice Cube, NWA, Dr. Dre, etc. and give his total to him. He hands me his credit card and asks, "Just out of curiosity, how's the new Vanilla Ice album doing?"

"The Hard to Swallow album?" I ask as I'm swiping his card. "It's doing as well as could be expected. We're not selling any because Vanilla Ice sucks and should be destroyed."

"Have you heard any of it?" he asks.

"I've heard the 'Ice, Ice Baby' re-make that he did on the album. I don't like Limp Bizkit either." I reply.

He kind of laughs, signs his credit card receipt, grabs his shit, and leaves with his buddies in tow. He was the last customer so I turn to my manager standing by the door and tell him to lock up. His jaw was on the floor. "That was him, you know." He tells me.

The funny thing is that I didn't know. I still had the image of him from 1990 with the Ace Ventura hair and 'Word to your mother' on his glittering jacket.

Woops.

The next time I saw him was years later while I was drinking at the bar inside the art house theatre I used to manage. One of my employees ran over and told me that Vanilla Ice bought a ticket to Step Into Liquid, a surf documentary we were showing. "I've already met him." I said cool as ice as I watched him pass by the window into the theatre.

Near Death Experience

2006-08-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

Today was my day off and I accomplished absolutely nothing. I had plans to do some packing and a few other things, but I went to this little hot dog hut across the street for lunch and it just about killed me. I don't know why places like that always seem like a good idea even though they always end in near death. I never think, 'I'm not going there, it made me sick last time.' Instead it's 'I got sick last time, but it was really good and I doubt it'll be the same this time.' Lousy hot dog hut. You're going on the 'People To Kill' list hanging above my couch.

If the hot dog hut doesn't kill me, this month will. We are closing on the house on Monday and moving a week from Thursday. Luckily, after all that madness, I get to jump on a plane and go to Wyoming for my vacation and get some down time. It's my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary and my whole family is gathering for the event up there. Lady M is staying behind and will be fixing up the new house and making it habitable. More on all this as it progresses.

Fish and lice for breakfast

2006-08-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

I got a call at 7:30 this morning from the boss man asking if I could come in early. It seems that our fish system went down over night again and this time he had the courtesy to let me sleep through this one. He had apparently been there since 11:30 last night fucking with the system and cleaning up the water on the floor. I get there and he promptly leaves, but not before telling me that there was a pit bull in the breakroom that a Target employee found this morning wandering around in the parking lot and he wants me to do something with it. Thanks, boss. I'll go fuck with the stray pit bull with no tags and see what happens. I called animal control and they came and took the poor creature away.

Around this time, our pet care manager calls. The boss had called her last night about the fish system fucking up and left her a message. I might add that she is out of town for a fucking funeral right now. She goes off on me for him calling her during this emotional time and tells me she can't worry about that shit right now. I agree with her and remind her that I wasn't the one that called but I would pass the word along to he who must not be named.

Now we notice that the aquarium gravel, which we keep under the fish tank system, was all soaked from the previous flood and we had to take all the bags and individually dry them off. The only problem with this plan is that the bags have little holes in them and so the bags were filled with water that smells an awful lot like fish. We do what we can and leave the bags of gravel sprawled on the ground with a fan blowing on them and hope they dry out a bit more.

Then one of my employees comes up and tells me that the vet figured out what has been biting everyone lately. See, a couple of weeks ago, one of my stockers came to work with bug bites all over his forearms and chest. Since then at least two employees a week have shown up with the same thing. It turns out that our rodents that we sell are all infested with some kind of blood sucking lice. The good news is that they may bite humans, but won't stay on us. The bad news is that all of our fucking rodents have them. This is going to involve six weeks of treatment for the little vermin plus sterilization of their cages. I was also granted the privilege of calling anyone who bought one of these fuckers this week and telling them that they need to bring them back to the store for lice treatment.

This was my day. I'm drinking now.

On a random dork side note, Harvey Dent will be a character in the upcoming Batman sequel. No one is finalized to play him yet, but Liev Schreiber is rumored to be up for the role.

Misfit Muppets

2006-08-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

Man, it feels like I have been busy lately. I feel like I haven't had time to do much of anything. I watched a couple of movies, one being Zombie Honeymoon, recommended by Skincarver. I have to say it wasn't half bad. I was expecting something more along the lines of The Fly, only the character slowly becoming zombified instead of insectified, but it was entertaining nonetheless. I also watched something called Five Children and It. Lady M put this one on the Netflix list because it has Kenneth Branagh in it, and he's one of the guys that make her go all melty and swoonish. She left the room after ten minutes out of boredom. I got all excited about it because Jim Henson's creature workshop had a hand in this one. I thought I would at least get to see one damn muppet, but the 'It' creature was computer animated. If you're going to get Jim Henson's shop to do something with your movie, there had better be muppets involved, mother fuckers!

Speaking of muppets, the other day, and when I say that I mean, like, a couple of months ago, I was watching my Muppet Show season one on DVD and they did this skit where a group of mops sang a song called Ragg Mopp and it was almost exactly the same thing as Ratt Fink by the Misfits. I checked the liner notes of the Misfits album and nowhere in there does Danzig give the Muppets any kind of credit. Those aren't world changing lyrics there, Glenn, why don't you give the damn mops some kind of song writing credit? Maybe that's why they broke up. Doyle and Jerry wanted to give the Muppets a cut of the profits from that song and Danzig wasn't having it. I know Skincarver is going to leave at least one nasty comment about this, so I'll stop.

I'm trying to figure out my next review for BSL. I'll have some time on Saturday to put something together so stay tuned.

I, Zombie

2006-08-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

I got home last night at around 11:00 after closing the store. I dicked around for about an hour and went to bed knowing I had to be up at 5:00am to go and open the fucking store. Man, was I wrong. I got a phone call at 1 mother fucking 45 in the morning from the boss who needed me to rush up there because the fish tanks were overflowing. I go up there and he had turned the water off to stop the waterfall that occurred and the floor has become an ocean. We get everything cleaned up and talk to the fish system support guy and try to figure out what the fuck happened. It turns out that there are a series of plugs going to various components of the system. Two of these plugs were switched. That was it. A plug in the wrong fucking socket made me go up to the store at 2am. I go through the day in zombie mode and leave at about 2 in the afternoon and sleep until about 9pm. My clock is all fucked up now.

Tomorrow is the infamous Cannibal Holocaust anniversary for the little woman and me. We decided that since we are such the wild couple, we are going to spend the day watching DVDs. I get to pick two and she gets to pick two. I know that one of mine will be Zombie Honeymoon at the suggestion of Skincarver from his BSL review. I'm not sure what movie number two will be.

I've been awake now for about an hour now, but I think I'm going to start drinking. That sounds nice.

Mostly Dork Stuff

2006-08-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

Finally, I'm home from work. Today was one of those days where something was always looming over my head just waiting to kill me. I haven't had a cigarette in over five months and haven't really thought about it in a while, but today really made me want to smoke my lungs black and rotten so with my last dying breath I could spit tar on the face of that fucking store. I don't want to get into it right now.

Lady M suprised me the other day with the first season of The Venture Brothers, an Adult Swim cartoon that I love and would marry if I wasn't already spoken for. If you haven't seen it, you really need to check it out. It is a strange amalgamation of the old Johnny Quest toon and The Tick with the guy who played Puddy on Seinfeld doing the voice of Brock Samson. Speaking of The Tick, season one of the cartoon comes to DVD this month. SPOON!

The other day I was able to watch one of my Netflix movies called Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo; a seventies B-movie that I thought would be kind of like Snakes on a Plane only with deadly spiders. I absolutly love spider movies, mainly because they scare the shit out of me in real life. This movie, however, really didn't do a hell of a whole lot for me. The thing that cracked me up most was the fact that they used two very different looking species of tarantula in this film and tried to pass them off as the same thing. If you ask me, Kingdom of the Spiders still holds the title for best killer tarantula film.

Other than that, the wife and I have been watching the Firefly series. As huge Buffy fans we tried to watch this one a while back and quit halfway through the first episode. I think we were distracted or drunk or something but we just couldn't get into it. We tried again at Lady M's sister's request and this time it is really working for us. It's a really well written sci-fi western hullabaloo with plenty of action and humor to go around. I also just found out that Morena Baccarin, who plays the whore on the show, was cast as Wonder Woman in the upcoming movie.

While we're on the subject of comic book movies, I also just found out that Heath Ledger has been cast as the Joker in the next Batman film. I was really hoping for Adrien Brody because he's a damn fine actor and has the pointiest face in Hollywood, but I guess I'll have to give Heath a chance. Jack Nicholson left some really big clown shoes for you to fill, Mr. Ledger, I hope you're up for the job.

Please don't throw things in the store, sir.

2006-08-02T16:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since the last blog so let me sum up the past few days. Mob and the wife came in town for the big bachelor weekend which you can read all about on Dear Bastards and Wine When Drunk From A Mug. They both pretty much go through everything worth knowing in detail, so I won't bother with it here. It was really good seeing Mob and Karmen and am so glad they were able to make it down. Sunday night the little woman and I went and saw Clerks II which was bitchin' so I wrote a review for it on Big Suck Loser. I seem to have swiped that one from Mob who was planning on reviewing it also, but he was able to squeeze one out on 2 Minute Movie Reviews.

The really big thing that is going on right now is Lady M and I are going to buy a house. We are going to meet up with Sam tonight and start to finalize everything. This place is in Arlington, which is further from work than I'd like to be, but the house is really nice and in our price range, and I might be able to transfer to another location. I might just look for another job altogether, though, and I'll tell you why.

Thirty minutes before my shift is over, this guy walks in looking for flea treatments for his mutt. I take him over to the proper aisle and show him the variety of products we have available. He thanks me and I walk back to he front of the store where an old co-worker has walked in and I strike a conversation with him. A few minutes later the guy is wandering around the front area looking perturbed. I ask if he needs anything else and he goes on about how the girl at the register asked him to go to the next one and she would ring him up there. On the long trek to the next register two younger, faster hoodlums cut in front of him and stole his spot. I told him everything would be okay and assured him that these two delinquents will probably go to hell in the end anyways so if he would just step over to register two, I would personally check him out. He turns and heads that way mumbling something about how much he hates our store and how our policy must be 'the customer is always wrong.' I ring him up for a bag of dog food, two separate spot on flea treatments, and a flea comb. After hearing the total, he asks how much the flea treatments were. I tell him that one is $6.49 and the other is $9.99. He argues that they are both $6.49 and goes back to the shelf where he got them and brings back a price tag he had ripped off the shelf that reads $6.49. I explain to him that the price tag that he brought up belongs to the product that rang up $6.49 and that the other one is still $9.99. "Fine! I don't want it then!", he yells and throws the product across the store. I told him that was unnecessary and took the item off the total. He pays and asks if the computer doesn't update when a price changes in our backward store. I tell him that the prices are correct and tell him that I really didn't know what he was so pissed off about. He insists on taking me back to the flea section and showing me the incorrect price tag for the item he hurled. I walk back with him, picking up the product on the way, and put it on the shelf with the other like products above a price tag reading $9.99. "Oh." He says. "Well I'll take that one too, I guess". No apology. Granted, this kind of shit is not the sole reason why I am thinking of looking for employment elsewhere, but it sure as fuck doesn't help.

Hey little girl, want some candy?

2006-07-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday started out bizarre enough when a lady called the store going on about Morgellon's Disease. It just so happens that I have heard of this from a link that was e-mailed to me months ago. It is a real disease but it sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie. People with the condition will get open sores and lesions where fibers of different colors will grow. It is very strange stuff, but it is also very rare. So this lady is going on about Morgellon's saying her house was infested with these cotton parasites all due to a rug that she brought back from Mexico. She then went on to say that you can see the parasites under a black light because they glow. Well, lady, a lot of things glow under a black light. She tells me to go out and buy a black light, which are hard to find right now because of the Morgellon's scare, and shine it on everything in the store and at my house. Only then will I be safe from the cotton menace. I told her I surely would so she would hang up and never call back, but came to two conclusions about her. Maybe she really is just a paranoid hypochondriac who feels the need to call places of business and warn them about parasites that come out of cotton made products. Or, she works for a black light company and is using fear to sell more black lights, kind of like the Chewley's Gum representative in Clerks.

The day progressed somewhat normally after this. Until around 8:15 when a five year old girl got bit by a fucking dog in the store during a training class. The trainers and the parents have the girl in the office with the first aid kit and are disinfecting the wound (I thought I saw fibers growing out if it). She had been bitten on her right side which broke the skin and drew some blood, and was really not that bad. Then again, I'm a grown-up and she is a five year old girl, so to her it was probably the worst pain she had ever been in. They put a band-aid on it and I go into the next office with the mother and the girl to fill out an incident report. They were actually very cool about the situation considering their daughter had just been almost eaten in the store. We get down to the end of the report and I ask if it would be okay to take a Polaroid picture of the wound for insurance purposes and the mother says 'sure'. Now comes the hard part. Now we have to convince this girl to take the band-aid off. She is not having it. We are in the office for 30 minutes trying to talk this girl into removing the band-aid, not because she thought it would hurt to take it off, but because she thought it was making the pain of the sore go away. I offer her candy, a soda, and eventually a Finding Nemo flashlight shaped like Dory to take this thing off for two seconds so I can snap the picture. Finally, the dad had to come in and hold the little girl while the mother rips the band-aid off with the girl screaming the whole time. I take the picture and the girl takes her candy and new flashlight and they go off to buy some Barbie band-aids at the grocery store. The picture didn't even come out that well.

Agent O'Mally Must Die

2006-07-24T17:33:00.000-07:00

Saturday night the little woman made a trip to Denton to see her family which left me with a kitchen pass for the night. I called my friend Rob up and went over to his place thinking we would just get some beer and play X-Box all night. Rob had been out by the pool all day so he was already kind of drunk when I got there at around eight o'clock. We decided to grab some dinner so we called our friends Robert and Jennifer and met up at a little micro brewery restaurant called Two Rows. After dinner we went to go rent a video game but the local Blockbuster had crap for a selection so we just went to get beer instead. After the beer run we stopped at a convenience store so Robert could get a Monster and Rob and I pulled up to the side of the building to wait for him to run in and out. A car pulls up beside us and the driver gestures for us to roll down our window after which he says, "I'm Agent O'Mally and I want to know what you guys have been smoking!" which is then followed with him laughing maniacally, his wife looking embarrassed, and he drives off leaving Rob and I very confused and kind of irritated. The rest of the night we spend at Rob's place watching the last part of Die Hard 3 and some really crappy vampire movie to which I don't remember the name of; during which the topic of discussion was 'who would we cast if there was to be a live action G.I. Joe movie.' We would want Jessica Alba to play Lady Jaye.

Sunday Lady M and I met up with Sam and looked at a few houses in Arlington. We looked at four. One had water damage and stained carpet, one had about twenty dead roaches on the floor and cracks in the walls, one had a kitchen the size of a closet, and one was a hud house which needed way more repairs than we could afford. It wasn't a complete waste, though, as it was nice to see Sam again and I got to spend the day with my special lady friend.

Back from the Grave

2006-07-21T20:50:00.000-07:00

Long story short, Tuesday night the computer dies. We try to fix it. We can't fix it. Last night we went and bought a new one. The really sad thing is that absolutely nothing worth mentioning has happened since then.

My brother is throwing me a bachelor "party" at the end of the month and I was thrilled to find out that the whole handful of my friends will be able to make it. I have no idea what this thing consists of, nor am I supposed to, I just know that it will probably not involve booze and it will definitely not involve strippers. My brother and I have always been like night and day. Growing up he was always into sports, school activities, Girbaud jeans, and anything that didn't involve swear words. I, on the other hand, hated sports and school activities, had a closet full of nothing but comic book and rock band t-shirts, and swore like a sailor then and continue the practice to this day. Fuck. See? Don't get me wrong, I do love the guy, in the sense that brothers should, and I am looking forward to seeing him and partaking in this event, I'm just curious to see how well the mixing of family and friends goes. Also, thank you to everyone who agreed to take part in this thing. I appreciate it more that you know and look forward to seeing you next week.

The Sensei and other Tragedies

2006-07-16T19:06:00.000-07:00

This was a wicked long week at work. I mean, every night there was at least one crazy person that walked through the door. This includes the girl that came in looking for a little filter insert for a small two gallon fish tank we sell. That is, we sell the fish tank, not the insert she was looking for. She goes on about how she was supposed to be leaving for a cruise but couldn't because she needed this part for her tank and how was her friend supposed to take care of her fish while she was gone without it? She was in tears, literally crying at this point. She asked why we would sell a tank but not the replacement parts that go to it. "Why would you do that? WHY?!?" Like it was some malicious plot we had going on just because we thought it was funny. She also showed me the filter she bought that day that didn't fit and said that she would like a refund on it. The filter was about 12 bucks. A brand new tank to replace the one she had was $19.99. I asked her why she just didn't spring for the extra eight dollars and get a brand new set up. She didn't think that was funny. I told her to go home, get her old tank and bring it back and I would exchange it for a brand new one. She said, "Now I have to go all the way home and come back again? I'm supposed to be going on a cruise right now!" She runs out the door and I haven't seen her again...Yet.

Last night I came home after a long day and found Lady M entertaining her sister. I empty my pockets and pull out a ten dollar bill that belongs in the safe at work. Fuck. The girls offer to go with me to give the money back after I shower and change. We deliver the money and on the way home we pull into a restaurant that Lady M and I favor called BJ's. After dinner we stop at the Movie Trading Company to browse for a minute. I find a copy of Young Frankenstein that I decide I need to own, and the little woman opts for nothing because they don't have Romancing the Stone. That's the deal with Movie Trading Company, though. You can't go in looking for anything specific. That store is such an unorganized mess you just have to go in and see what you find.

When we get home, Lady M's sister heads out and M and I settle in for a movie. A friend of ours was the cinematographer on a film called The Sensei which he gave us a rough copy of and which you can read about on Wine When Drunk From A Mug. The movie was balls out awful, and if I didn't have the little woman there to trade comments with and good supply of beer I wouldn't have made it five minutes in.

Finally, I was able write my Ice Pirates review so be sure and check that out on the Big Suck Loser. After The Sensei and Ice Pirates, tonight I really need a good movie.

X-Men and Ed Norton

2006-07-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

We just finished watching 25th Hour and I have to say that I do believe that this is the very first Spike Lee flick that I enjoyed. The funniest thing that I noticed was that it had Anna Paquin (Rogue), Aaron Stanford (Pyro), Brian Cox (Stryker), and Ed Norton delivers the line, "I wish I was like that girl in the X-Men. The one that can walk through walls."

Netflix just sent an old nostalgic piece of film that I plan on re-visiting in the next day or so; Ice Pirates. I remember that the very first movies that we rented on our brand new Beta VCR were Time Bandits and Ice Pirates. I haven't seen this thing in probably 15 years or more, so I'll let you know how it goes. I think it will be the next review for me on Big Suck Loser, so stay tuned.

Now I'm going to try and figure out how to do the links and stuff that everyone else but me seems to know how to do.

Really, lady?

2006-07-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

I awoke this morning at 5:00am because Wednesday is the day we have our manager meeting up at the store. Our genius boss prefers to have this meeting at 6:00am because if we did it during normal business hours like every single other fucking store in the chain we might be interrupted. I shit you not. I drag my ass up to the store and the meeting is pointless as usual. I get home around 7:30 and cook the little woman breakfast, which gives me the chance to break in the Scooby Doo waffle iron I got this past Christmas which I had been dying to use but never had the chance until now. The waffles actually come out looking like little Scooby heads, which I thought was the coolest thing since our Hello Kitty toaster. After breakfast, the wife gets ready for work and I go back to bed. I have to close the store tonight so I have to go back at 2:00.

The day was plagued with idiots. The gold medal goes to the woman who calls me saying that she had a litter of stray kittens back in May that she gave to the dog trainer at the Mesquite store so she could find an adoption agency that would take them. Now she wants to find the cats to make sure they are alright. I told her she is calling the Addison store, not Mesquite. She said she knows that, but she was wondering if I could go look at the cats we have in the store and tell me if I see her kittens. This conversation goes on for about 15 minutes. I tell her that I don't work in Mesquite. I don't know anyone at the Mesquite store. We don't have any fucking kittens, only adult cats. No, the trainer in Mesquite does not also moonlight at our location. We work with different adoption agencies than they do. You will never see your damn kittens again. She finally accepts this fact and hangs up. I hope she finds her kittens. I hope they eat her.

Beginning

2006-07-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

If everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I? It seems that everyone I know is on the bloggin' bandwagon, so I'm jumping on. I don't think I'll be able to keep up with this thing daily like my friends and better half does, but we'll see what happens.

Today is my day off. I usually work fifty plus hours a week as operations manager at a pet supply store. The job shouldn't be as stressful as it is, but my boss is abso-fucking-lutely crazy. He is the most forgetful man I have ever met, he refuses to learn certain aspects of the job, (probably because he'll just forget how to do it immediately), and when he talks, he goes on and on and strays so far off the original subject that nobody knows how we got there or what the original point was. You'll hear more about him later, I'm sure. I don't want to think about work on my day off.

So, today I spent a few hours working on a flier for my job. Dammit, there it is again. My job. There is no escape. The flier is to help recruit new dog trainers for our store. You see, our two trainers that we had just quit, and for this particular company training is a big deal. Anyone who has worked retail knows that there is always something that is being pushed to sell or else your store gets an ass reaming for not meeting your goal. This certain something may be convincing people to sign up for a credit card with your store's logo on it, preordering an item in your store, or signing people up for some kind of discount card, but for this place it is all about the training. So, a few weeks ago I made a flier for a parking lot event for my store which everyone seemed to like well enough, so I was asked to make another one trying to get applicants in to fill the void that our previous two dog trainers left behind.

Seriously, enough about work. A few weeks ago, a package was delivered to my store. Fuck. I can't believe how much crap revolves around that place. Anyways, a package is delivered. Inside is a few DVDs that we sell about, you guessed it, dog training. Along with these DVDs on how to properly train your animal was a copy of Harold and Maude. Strange movie to be getting in for a pet store, I thought. I called the vendor and it was indeed a mistake on their part, but she tells me to just keep the movie as it wouldn't be worth the hassle to send it back. I am no fan of Harold and Maude, so I leave it on the desk for someone else who may want to watch it. It sits on the desk for about a month so I finally take it thinking there must be some sucker willing to exchange this movie for another DVD. I first venture out to Target hoping to make a trade for Charlie and the Chocolate factory. My fiancee and I went with our friend Rob to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean flick last weekend and ever since I have felt the need for more pirates and Johnny Depp in my life. Neither of these cravings are new or odd for me but they have been particularly strong this week. So, Depp as Wonka is what I need to come back with today. I take the Harold and Maude in to Target and she scans the DVD, throws it back at me and says, "We don't even carry this. Sorry." What a bitch. She tells me to try Wal Mart. Fine, I feel less like a scum bag trying to scam Wal Mart anyways. I go into the evil establishment and ask the white trash customer service lady if I could exchange my crappy DVD for a good movie. She says, 'Sure', and I go back and look at their selection. For such a gigantic store, they had a tiny and shitty selection of movies. I guess everyone that shops at Wal Mart only wants to own Basic Instinct 2. I mill around for a while, and after not finding Chuck and the Chocolate Factory, I opt for another DVD which I will not mention due to the fact that it's embarrassing. I bring my choice back to white trash and she scans the Harold and Maude to which she says, "We don't carry this. This came from somewhere else." Fuck me. What kind of horrible place full of dark magic did this curse of a DVD come from? I took my crappy DVD back and decided to just go see how much in trade I could get for it at the Movie Trading Company. I guess I just wasn't cut out to be a scam artist. Oh well. I get $3.50 in trade for this thing so I only have to pay nine bucks for the Charlie. Good enough. Time to go home.