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I Don’t Get Out Much

 

Uggsly
Uggsly

At least not anymore.  But I was out for most of the day today, at least if you consider the mall and grocery store as “out”.  When I say I don’t get out much, I’m talking about the house and my pajamas.  I mean that I literally don’t get out of my pajamas much.  Here are some random thoughts I had throughout the day…

The mall was insanely crowded.  I’m sure the cold had something to do with it.  That’s the only reason we didn’t go to the park for a walk instead (kid with a cold).  Maybe everybody was just window shopping–dunno–but somebody needs to tell these folks that we’re in severe economic straits.  Isn’t that why we have a media.  Oh wait–the media is saying that.  Maybe it’s just that people don’t trust what they say so much.  Could all of the Fox News Alerts and CNN Breaking News flashes turned them into The Boy Who Cried Wolf?

The Apple Store.  Honestly, I don’t get it.  I think Apple has great computers, mosly because of the OS.  But the price…seriously?  As far as iPods go, I own a first generation Nano that I received as a gift and like. But I couldn’t justify spending that much on a player when all I want to do with it is run, especially when you can get one of these, which are bad ass, so much cheaper.  I think form follows function.  Actually, I think form follows price, which follows function in this case.  I just want something small and light that plays music while I run.  I’m too slow to impress to impress anyone, no matter what kind of player I’m using.

On top of that, Apple store can do all it wants to make me feel like I’m in Times Square while I browse their 900 square foot commercial, but I know where I really am.  Even if i didn’t, I’m quickly reminded of it when I walk out of the store and see this.

Next up, girls with tight, short shorts on and Uggs.  It was 40-something degrees today.  I wear shorts all the time when it’s too cold for most people, but usually out of necessity, not as a fashion statement.  It was too cold for me to wear shorts today.  I hope you don’t wake up in 15 years embarrassed about this.  Don’t worry, there’s a decent chance you won’t.  I have a pair of Skidz shorts I bought in 1990 that weren’t even cool then.  Even worse, I still wear them. But I may not be the fashion example you want to follow.

And to end on a positive note, several people were really nice to me at the Kroger on Middlebrook.  Although I was an ace at it a couple of years ago, grocery shopping is not easy for me any more.  I’m grocery stupid now–back and forth across the store several times to get everything most of the things a few of the things on my list.  I was waiting in line to check out and a guy came and told me that they could check me out in a different line.  He could see that I was struggling to hang on to a tasmanian devil, so he took my cart for me and even unloaded it before bagging my groceries.  Then, just as I was finishing up loading up the car, a nice lady grabbed my cart so that I wouldn’t have to take it to the return.  She didn’t even work there.

I plan on going out again for the next round of early voting or to stock up on yeast and copper line.

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Three Things I Haven’t Let Go

When I first got hit with this meme by BillyMac, I thought the topic was “3 Things I Wouldn’t Let Go”. That one would be pretty easy–family, health, and some other random item.

But this is “3 Things You Haven’t Let Go”, which has a much different conotation. Maybe I’m inferring it incorrectly, and it’s vague enough for interpretation, but I take this as “3 Things I Haven’t Let Go (but probably should)”. Believe it or not, this is a part of my character I’ve really worked on over the past few years. I’ve really tried to develop “the ability to let that which does not matter truly go.” Despite my best efforts, I still have plenty options. After all, I am powered by spite.

Spite CanAs I’m trying to narrow it down to the top three, I’m realizing how much I don’t want to admit any of this publicly. It’s not the fear of baring my soul that’s holding me back–it’s the realization of how stupid they all are. All instances of forgiven, but not forgotten. In order of increasing ridiculousness on my part…

Las Vegas August, 2005
I was going out for a weekend with about 15 other guys. Soon after booking my ticket I saw that there were UFC fights that weekend, so I asked some other guys if they wanted to go. I could only buy eight tickets, and as soon as seven other guys said they were in, I bought 8 together. $100 per ticket before all the taxes and charges. Not a problem–these guys are all local and they all have jobs. I’ll get my money back this week, right? Wrong. But that’s not the worst part. Literally thirty minutes before the fights I met up with the final two guys who owed me for their tickets. They walked up with two other guys who I didn’t know, paid me for the tickets, and turned around and sold them for $200 each to the other guys right in front of me! Chuck Liddell is lucky he didn’t have to fight me that night.

Summer 1993
I was living in a dump of a house in Ft. Sanders with two other guys–$300 rent. We split the electric and basic phone service evenly, but if anyone had long distance calls they had to pay it themselves. The month he moved out, one of my roommates had $37 worth of long distance calls to his girlfriend in California. By the time the bill came, he was gone, and the other guy and I had to eat it. Sure, not a lot of money, but at the time it was, and besides it’s the principle. I never got the money back from him, but I did hit him in the back with a folding chair (part of the height of my pro-wrestling obsession) in Long Branch one night when he was playing pool. Surprisingly, it didn’t make me feel any better.

St. Patrick’s Day Rugby Tournament, Savannah Georgia, 2000
We had a pretty solid team, and were scheduled for a Sunday morning match. Of course we’d all gone out on and had fun on Saturday night. At game time on Sunday, we only had 12 guys there. We started the match shorthanded, and when the other guys finally rolled up, I was infuriated. I didn’t even want them to come into the game–my preference was to take an ass kicking and let them sit and watch it. After the match (we lost) I refused to shake their hands. I love all of those guys, but I haven’t let the fact that they didn’t show up for us that morning go. I could have stayed in Knoxville if all I wanted to do was drink beer and not play rugby. Under certain conditions and in the presence of certain people, this one still sends me into a mild rage.

See the common thread here? All cases of being let down by friends. So I guess that is my biggest pet peeve? Possibly.

Up next are:
SVD
Ivy
Taylor–fingers crossed she’ll relate this to public education

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Overheard at the Hospital

I just returned to the hospital from running a couple of errands, and I came in through the cafeteria entrance, which has a nice outdoor dining area. There was a group of people unpacking their cooler (white bread, baloney, mayonnaise, and Lay’s potato chips) and I overhead the following statement:

“He’s got four warrants out, owes $14,000 in back child support, and he ain’t even lookin’ for a job.”

That’s funny.

Have you ever noticed that most of the people at the hospital look really unhealthy? I don’t mean the people that are in the hospital, I mean the people visiting. There are tons of overweight people (haha), and most of them are standing outside smoking. I’m not talking about heavy people–I could lose a few pounds myself. I’m talking about really obese people puffing away. It makes you wonder if the people they are there to visit are there mostly because they share a similar lifestyle.


Worse than the friends and family doing this outside are the nurses.

Is this what our money would go to support with nationalized health care? It’s no more fair for them to chip in and pay for my knee surgery because I chose to play a collision sport with a bunch of 20 year old kids than it is for me to chip in to pay for their health problems due to their lifestyle.

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Barbie Cummings Misses Court

All she had to do was show up and her ticket would have been dismissed. Now she’ll have to pay it. 🙁

Since her old site has been taken down, she has a temporary blog. According to that, she’s been pretty busy lately, traveling to the West Coast for some business engagements and even getting married in Las Vegas.

It states there that she’s moving from Knoxville to L.A. soon, so I guess the court date completely slipped her mind.

***UPDATED 7.25.07
You COULD read about it in her own words, but Blogger deleted her site…probably because there was extremely explicit material on there. You can always depend on me to stay well informed on this story. 😛

What a truly strange story to be cumming (sorry, had to) out of sleepy old Knoxville!