Customer Service 101

So I bought a video game today (I know I'm a dork, deal with that, let me tell my story), and when I got home, I realized the guy had put the empty display case in my bag instead of the new game. So I went back, with five minutes to spare before the store closed, and the door was already locked. I held up the empty case at the guy through the glass, and he laughed at me and gave me a mocking "there's nothing I can do" face. When I gave him the "it's simple, it'll only take a second" face, he laughed at me, and turned the other way, completely ignoring me. Suffice it to say, this pissed me off, especially since that was the guy who had just rung me up.

So, in conclusion, to all my friends in the retail industry, here's an easy to remember list of three things to never do when you work in customer service and an irate customer approaches you:
1.) laugh at them
2.) refuse them entry into the store
3.) turn your head and pretend they aren't there

Bad Santa

Continuing my trend of, umm, seeing movies, I guess, I went to see Bad Santa today. I highly recommend this one as well, to anyone with a dark sense of humor. In fact, let's take the ABC test. If you think any of the following are funny:
- anal sex jokes involving fat girls
- beating up children
- copulating drunks
then you will like this movie. I happen to like all of those, so score!

Anyway, what's the deal with commercials before movies these days? You'd think that with twelve commercials (I counted them) before a movie, the ticket prices would be a little less, but now it's $7 just to go during matinee hours. That's totally ridiculous. Where the hell is the money going? I'll tell you where: into some movie producer's nose, that's where. Take THAT corrupt movie industry.

There were also six trailers, which is above usual, but I enjoy trailers, so I'll let that slide. Still, some of that stuff looks wicked awful. Except Mindhunters, which looked pretty cool.

Damn It All

It's official. Single people should not go see romantic comedies. Ever. Unless it's a romantic comedy of such laughable proportions that your sole reason for going is to throw popcorn at the screen (i.e. anything Jennifer Lopez has ever starrred in). I went to see Love Actually tonight, and I really liked it a lot. The problem is that it left me really really wanting a girlfriend. No particular reason, just because seeing love well portrayed on screen makes love seem like a desirable thing. Anyone who knows me knows I'm staunchly anti-girlfriend until I move to Chicago, but seeing a movie like this is kryptonite to the Superman-like willpower I've exerted (anyone who knows me also knows that I just lied about that willpower bit).

Anyway, I recommend the film. Unless you're single. ESPECIALLY if you are single and suicidal. This bit of holiday sweetness might just push you over the edge. To anyone with a significant other, I give it a wholehearted thumbs up. Bastards.

Carbon Leaf

Less than a month until the acoustic Carbon Leaf shows at the Birchmere. Who wants to go to them with me? Let me know.

Some Thanksgiving Questions...

How come some lame bird like a turkey got picked as the official bird of Thanksgiving and not something more exciting, like an ostrich or a pterodactyl?
Does anyone really believe that the pilgrims peacefully ate a meal with "savages"?
Does anyone else notice how closely cranberry sauce resembles napalm?
Why can't turkeys be stuffed with candy or anything that doesn't taste like soggy croutons?
If you make a wish, and win the better half of the wishbone, and your wish doesn't come true, does that mean that your turkey wasn't potent enough?
Is there some way to secure the waddly thing from the turkey's face and make it into a neat Thanksgiving hat?

Shave and a haircut...

I'm going to go for a haircut this week. Usually I go to the Hair Cuttery, but I'm going to try Mr. Lee. He's a fancy haircutter who my mom and sister use, and he's the same price. Apparently, he cuts entirely with razors. Like Edward Scissorhands, but Korean. Sweet. Wish me luck.

Boo hiss...

So I just watched the Simpsons for the first time in a few months, and Jesus, is that show depressing these days. It's nothing like it used to be, and that's a real shame. I feel like they should take it off the air before it REALLY embarrasses itself.

We're the Wuzzles!

I found this little gem in a big stack of worksheets for the kindergarten class here at the religious school:



In case you can't read it, here's a close up of the instructions:



I'm going to give it a shot. I can't think of any good names off hand, though. I'll update when I do. Also, if anyone draws a really good one, I'll post it on the site.

P.S. Can these guys get sued by the creators of the Wuzzles? Because this is a BLATANT ripoff.

Bloody brilliant!

So it seems that political posts generate more comments...hmm. I'll try my luck for a second day here.

Via Counterspin, I read up on the both the Bush protests in London and the current Medicare fiasco. Both are pretty big. The protests have pulled in an estimated 800,000 (!!) people, and I think that the toppling of the Bush statue is just about the sweetest thing I've ever seen in my life. How much more do people need to protest to get the message across to Americans that every other country hates our president? How, exactly, does Bush feel like he's helping the global community by our continued presence in Iraq? These are open-ended questions for anyone reading this.

The second part, the Medicare thing, that doesn't affect me nearly as much (the Iraq war affects all of us young'uns, seeing as how there's a slight rumbling of Bush reinstating the draft, however speculative it is), but it's still interesting. It seems, and if I'm wrong please correct me, as I get a lot of my news from left-leaning news sources, that the GOP pushed a huge Medicare prescription plan and got the chairman of the AARP to agree to it, even though it's going to gouge seniors price-wise, and now they are touting the fact that the Democrats want to reject the plan, even though it is AARP-approved. Meanwhile, seniors across the country and leaving the AARP in droves and burning their membership cards, disgusted by the plan.

It just seems to me, with all the research showing how influential seniors are in general elections, that this is a dumb idea. Sending through a plan that obviously pisses off a lot of potential voters just to make it seem like the Dems don't want to help them is a bad strategy. I didn't major in poli sci, but this just makes sense to me.

All comments on either issue are welcome :)

Why not?

As some of you may know, the Massachusetts Supreme Court declared the ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional.

I don't know how everyone else feels, but I don't see why this is such a big deal. Gay marriage today is like the issue of abortion 30-something years ago. Personally, I support abortion, because I support the choice to be able to do what you want, not because I like the idea of killing babies (which I do, but only in a strictly comical context). I feel the same way about gay marriage. It's not a choice that I personally will need to make, but it's one that I support the right to have, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, in my opinion, the arguments against gay marriage make it that much stronger than the abortion issue. Although I don't agree with them, I can understand where pro-life activists are coming from, with the sanctity of life argument and the abortion is murder angle.

One of the anti-gay marriage arguments are that marriage is for procreation. If that's the case, should we outlaw masturbation? Oral and anal sex? Sex among the elderly (maybe...) and the infertile? Because really, these are all against the Bible.

Another argument is that it undermines the traditional nuclear family. Come on. You can't possibly tell me that one out of every two "mom, dad, and two kids" family out there isn't undermining itself. If the people making this argument were really so concerned about the sanctity of marriage, wouldn't they outlaw divorce? And extramarital affairs? They would, so long as those issues didn't affect them at all. It's much easier to make someone else's life hard than your own.

I'm interested in everyone else's take on this. If I don't get some response, I'll take it to mean that this isn't really the forum for political discussion, and I'll write a new post about why I like cheese or something.

24-aholic

So I saw my first ever episode of 24 last night, and it was good. I think I might quickly become addicted to that show. It seems like it's right up my alley, and it just so happens that I never have plans on Tuesday nights. If you watch this show (I'm looking at you here, AJ), leave me some comments to catch me up on the show so far.

Also, this is the best news I've heard regarding television shows that I like that have been cancelled in a long time.

Things Not to Do to Cars

On the way to work today, I saw a Nissan Altima with a self-installed spoiler on the back. Now, I don't know shit about shit when it comes to car, but I know, deep down in my soul, that there's something fundamentally wrong there. Isn't that like putting nice rims on an SUV? Or, like, flames on a minivan? I've already mentioned how I don't like those stupid tiger tails hanging out of trunks. Here are some other don'ts when it comes to cars, as far as I'm concerned:
- tinted side windows - nobody buys it when you call yourself a celebrity, and they're not going to buy it when your car lies for you, either
- blacklight carriages - you might think it's cool that there's a rave going on near your front axle, but I just think it's distracting and stupid
- extra-large subwoofers - your car sounds like a porno soundtrack, regardless of what you're listening to inside
- fuzzy dice - unless you drive a pre-1980 Cadillac, don't get these
- animal print interiors - because they clash with your animal print clothes and accessories, most likely
- extra-loud mufflers - right, we get it, you have big balls
Like I said, I don't know anything about cars, so maybe these things all come standard these days. That doesn't stop me from not liking them, though.

Vitamin P

Hey, you know how when you take a vitamin in the morning, it turns your urine fluorescent yellow all day?

That's really scary when it's unexpected.

City Driving

Does everyone have something that you really work yourself up about, and tell yourself that it's going to be horrible, and then freak out when you have to do it, and then realize that it's waaaaay easier than you thought it would be? I'm like that with city driving. For some reason, it really scares the bejesus out of me, the concept of driving in cities and parallel parking, and then it happens, and I do perfectly alright, and I realize that I just scared myself out of a year's worth of life and for no good reason. I think this is the foundation for eventually becoming neurotic, but I'm not sure yet. I'll let you all know in ten years.

Elf-tastic!

I went and saw Elf last night. I was really hesitant to see this movie at first, but I'm not really sure why. Will Ferrell is awesome, the premise was funny...

Anyway, I liked it a lot. It had your typical Christmas sappiness, but that's to be expected in a Christmas movie. The plot wasn't anything fantastic, either. However, Will Ferrell is a godsend to the comedy world. No one else could have played the wide-eyed surprise that Buddy needed. He's hysterical. Go see this movie. It gets the Jewish Guy Holiday Movie Seal of Approval.

Pet Peeves

I was thinking of my pet peeves today, and here's a few of the ones I came up with:
- being "humored" - I hate it when people just smile and nod at me when I'm being myself. I don't appreciate that. I'd rather just not associate with those people anyway.
- people with no sense of humor - These are typically the people who humor me. When you drop a joke, and a person just stares at you glassy-eyed, I know that our relationship will be short-lived.
- pessimists - The glass is half full. Deal with it.
- the phrase "I'm all about some ______" - Whether people are all about some cheese or some partying or some flamingo sex, I don't want to hear it phrased like that. It's stupid.
- people who openly talk about dietary issues - I don't care how many carbs you eat on a given day, or how many grams of saturated fat were in your lunch. It's not interesting in the least. Learn to tell a joke to fill the dead space in a conversation and your life will be infinitely better.
- when old people use (what they think is) new slang - You'll never relive your past. Stop trying. "You go girl" and "you're the man" just make you sound fuddier and duddier.

This is by no means a complete list. I have more pet peeves than most people, so I'm sure I'll come up with some more as the day goes on.

Horrible Food Experiences

I just had Chinese food for lunch. Typically, this would be a good thing. However, I decided to try something new this week: Hot Diced Chicken. It was spicy chicken cubes in some kind of ginger sauce with pieces of scallion in it. Sounds tasty.

Looks like someone threw up in a Chinese container and didn't feel like cleaning it up.

Also, tastes somewhere in between those two.

Not that I'm in the minority here, but I absolutely hate it when a food sounds really good on a menu, and ends up being shit. Are there any other foods like this I should watch out for? Because I don't want any more unpleasant surprises like this, whether I'm going out for Chinese, Italian, or whatever.

Adam Sandler Blows

I'd like to submit, for anyone who reads my website, the following: Adam Sandler is the worst thing to happen to the movie industry. Period. Sure, he was funny in Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, but they were pretty clever movies. Almost everything since, and ESPECIALLY his latest stuff, has been successive loads of flaming dogshit baggies heaped on the moviegoing public's doorstep. On top of that, they all seem to end with some kind of passionate courtroom/baseball game/iced over lake scene where one of the main characters gives a 100% cheese monologue about how they've changed their ways. Let's break it down thusly:
- Mr. Deeds - Not the worst movie ever. Watchable with some small bits of schmaltz in there. Not clever by any stretch of the imagination, and it relied a bit too heavily on creepy humor (John Turturro, mostly) and cheap sentiment for my own sense of well being.
- Eight Crazy Nights - The low standard by which I judge all other movies. Every time I see a bad movie since I saw this, I compare it to ECN. It's like saying how many degrees Fahrenheit water is above the freezing point. I didn't think I was soulless enough to go to a comedy and not laugh at least once, but I didn't bank on a movie being this maliciously awful.
- Anger Management - I just saw this after reading that it wasn't as bad as it looked. However, if that was the case, it must have looked like someone had vomited in my shoe and then put it on without wearing any socks, because that's about the only visual imagery I can think of off-hand that remotely touches the horror I felt after watching this load of garbage.

I know that somewhere in there lies Punch-Drunk Love, but I'd like to bet that that was a big-time fluke and that, in retrospect, Adam Sandler probably wishes he did some comedy about a sewage worker who helps the elderly or some shit. I also know I'm going to take some heat for lumping all of Adam Sandler's crap in with The Wedding Singer, because that wasn't as horrible as the rest, but it still wasn't a good movie, and it wasn't Sandler playing his usual puerile self, so that helps it out a little. If anyone can change my mind about this, feel free, but as far as I can tell, the only thing Adam Sandler does right is look like Dan.

Favorite Shows

Since Couch is so intent on pushing her DailyShowist agenda on my website, I'll help her out. I'm just curious what good shows are out there on TV, these days. Here's a brief list of the only things I'll turn the TV on for:

1.) The Daily Show (it's my favorite too, Couch, don't worry)
2.) SNL (although this is more like a duty than a pleasure)
3.) Conan (if I'm up, working sucks)
4.) Simpsons (same comment as #2, I hope they get better again)
5.) reruns of Family Guy or Futurama
6.) Six Feet Under (the only dramatic program on my list...hmm)

That's it. I don't even watch these shows regularly, they're just shows I'll watch if I remember they're on, and I'm near a TV. On most days, I don't even turn the TV on. If there's something really good that I'm missing, let me know.

P.S. If anyone comments that I am missing great things on Friends, Will and Grace, or any reality TV program (including the Newlyweds), we're no longer on speaking terms.

P.S.2. If anyone comments with those shows specifically in an attempt to be a snarky little smartass, we're also no longer on speaking terms.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, is this guy's job to essentially play chess against different types of computers for his whole life? Because, seriously, what a nerdy job.

guaranteed 10-14" overnight!

Seriously, how many sad chumps are there in the world who fall for this? I mean, how utterly devoid of length does your penis need to be for you to volunteer for the kind of enhancement surgery these guys are probably pushing? Short of grafting another guy's dick to the end of yours, I can't think of a way this could work, and seriously, you'd have to be either really deranged or really small in the package department to volunteer for something like that.
The same goes for the Viagra spam (this sounds like some kind of old pervert aphrodisiac). Who in their right mind would buy erectile dysfunction medicine from an e-mail where every other word has added and altogether unneeded letters? If the subject line goes something like "guysz wwant too lasts ALLL NIGHTZ", don't buy drugs from the sender. It's as easy as that. Whether it's pot, heroin, Viagra, or fucking aspirin, your best bet is to stay away from someone who writes like that.

The Art of Wooing

I'm just curious, for all the lovely ladies reading this (how YOU doin'?), what exactly would it take for a guy to pick you up? I mean, starting from scratch, what could a guy do to make a girl find him more attractive, short of wearing ridiculous amounts of cologne and working out (yeah right)?

On the flip side, guys? Things that you look for when you meet a girl?

My short list of things that aren't obvious (eyes, smile, breasts, etc.) is:
- sense of humor (which is also pretty obvious)
- sense of humor resembling mine (not as easy to find)
- sympathetic towards others
- liberal minded
- no high maintenance

That's not too hard to find, I guess.

Seagulls

THE SETTING is a deserted beach. The sand is littered with shells. Two seagulls swoop down at the same time and dive for the same shell.

SEAGULL #1
Get lost, I saw this first.

SEAGULL#2
No, I did! You couldn’t see an elephant past that long beak of yours.

SEAGULL#1
I’m surprised you can see my beak at all, with those beady little eyes of yours.

SEAGULL#2
Yeah, well me and my beady little eyes are going to take that crab, whether you like it or not.

SEAGULL#1
My tail feathers you are. That crab is coming home with me.

SEAGULL#2
Sez you. You’ll have to take it from me.

(He snatches the crab in his beak and starts to fly away. The first seagull quickly flies after him and attacks him in midair. The crab drops to the sand below and walks into the ocean.)

You made me lose my dinner. Now I have to go hunt for another one.

SEAGULL#1
You deserved it. And now I have to go hunt for more food, too. Thanks a lot, asshole.

(They both fly off in separate directions.)

Physicals Schmysicals

I'm going in for a physical today with a new doctor, who happens to be a female. Below are the three worst things that can happen:

1.) she is attractive and my animal instincts kick in
2.) she looks like someone I know
3.) she has a tight grip

I don't know why I couldn't have just gone to my regular male doctor.

Job History

Favorite job: moon bounce attendant through the Entertainment Connection
Easy, got to play on moon bounces, spent quality time in the sun

Least favorite job: student cadet, JMU
Made below minimum wage, worked 8-3 am shifts, often very fucking cold outside

This job probably falls about dead center on my list of jobs I've had. It could be worse: I make decent money, the hours are average, the working conditions aren't horrible. It could also be a hell of a lot better.

This post is weak. I just wanted to get one in today. If I come up with something better later, I'll make sure I share it.

Still Bored

I can't help but wonder how people killed time before the high-speed internet connection was invented. I imagine it went something like this:

Worker: I'm really bored.
(Worker bashes self over head with stapler until enters state of blissful unconciousness)

I mean, I HAVE high-speed internet, and I can't find anything to do. All of my usualy boredom-relieving websites are only fun if you're bored like once a week, and not every hour of every day.

About a Boy

So like I mentioned back on my old website, I'm on a big Nick Hornby kick lately. I read High Fidelity and liked it so much I bumped it up into favorite book status. I wasn't too keen on that movie, however, mostly because I find John Cusack to be annoying. Then I read About a Boy, and I actually liked that movie better, but the book was still good. I think the movie just had a more satisfying (or happy) ending. Now I'm in the middle of reading How to Be Good, and thus far, it's very entertaining. I think that may be his most recent book, so I'm going to need a list of what to move onto next. Any suggestions?

Mr. Surly

I think it's really fun to be surly sometimes. I think this is because for like 99% of the time, I'm really passive. Being surly makes me feel big and brawny and like I'm a coal miner or a really badass mailman, and not a trumped up secretary. Here are some fun examples you can try at home:

Someone Else: "Would you like to buy a puppy from me?"
You: "I'd rather eat a toddler's bathing diapers, thanks."

A co-worker: "You are a spectacular person."
You: "How'd you like an assful of shoe?"

Another Person: "Hey, how was your day yesterday?"
You: "Cram it in your ear, facehole!"
You can try your own varieties of the above, if you'd like. Really, it's pretty liberating. And no one gets hurt, in the end.

Hasta la vista, Blogger!

Here we go...

I have a website! It's up! Hot damn!

I just finished reading High Fidelity after starting it yesterday afternoon.

Yeah, it's that good. I think it might be my new favorite book.