Thank You Richard From Little Rock

So I recently canceled my land line. And it was a frustrating trip full of domestic and foreign imbeciles to get from A to B. I understand now the stories of people getting stuck in a phone maze and being in customer support hell. Let me set the table for you, much like everyone else I have a landline telephone. And it was very nice to have, the only problem was I hadn't really used it in a few years. Well, other than to have hooked up to my Dish Network receiver. And that's about it. I kept thinking to myself, "self, you just need to get rid of that and save some money." I have recently been using my cell phone more than my landline and it just made sense to cut the cord. The only people who would be upset about this would be my local newspaper who would call at least five times a week with a robot call about subscriptions and the Original Gutter Company. Hell, they used to call all the time even when I lived in an apartment. I wanted to keep them on the phone some time and give them all my information and then have them come out for the free estimate. That would have been great to see them come out and realize it was an apartment complex. But I didn't because I really didn't want to waste that much time on the phone with them. So back to canceling my land line with ATT. And I figured while I was doing that I'd go ahead and increase my DSL service to the fastest speed they offered. I don't use my landline but I use my internet all the time so that made sense to to do. On paper it seemed like an easy enough thing to do, turn one off and bump up the other. Done. So one Wednesday afternoon I called. That was the end of the easy part. If I had any idea of how much of a clusterfuck this was all going to turn into I may not have even tried. I called, talked to the robot voice. Oh my God, how I hate those robot voiced phone mazes. I think they're technically called VRS, voice response systems. What they should be called is the seventh level of hell. First off, you sound like a retard when you're talking to them and half the time the robot voice on the other end can't understand what you're saying. Good God people, if you're going to use some kind of technology like that at least use one that works. Those all suck and put you in a worse mood than you were when you were calling in the first place. As bad as they are, at least they speak English. More on that later. So I got through the robot voice phone maze and was actually going to be allowed to talk to a person. As I've outlined before, I'm not too patient so you can imagine how I love these voice systems. When I got to talk to the lady on the other end I explained that I wanted to have my landline disconnected and also have my DLS line upgraded to the highest speed they had available. I was giving names, numbers and all that and she checked and I was able to have the data only service in my area so I was good to go. She finished up on her end and said everything for both requests should be done on Friday. Nice! So I crafted an email to send out to everyone I knew to let them know that as of that Friday, I would no longer have a landline and I would be cell only. Sent that out and then just waited for Friday to get here. Friday morning rolled around and I woke up and turned on my phone and dead line. Nice! Didn't have a chance to check the internet but I figured if the phone was ok I should be good to go. 7:36a.m. on that Friday was the last good thought I had about ATT for quite a while. I went to work, uneventful day, came home and wanted to see how fast I would be going on the interweb now. No connection. That's weird, it said it my computer was connected to my network. So I quit my browser and relaunched and still nothing. Restarted my computer. And still nothing. What the fu.... So I went to check out the router and modem and the DSL light on my modem was blinking red. No signal. But my laptop sure as hell was getting a signal. So I figured it was hopefully a quick fix. I called the tech support line, went through the robot voice maze and got to talk to someone in tech support. In Mumbai I'm guessing. She was pleasant enough while I was giving her my info and giving her the background on why I was calling. She said the line signal looked good and that I should wait an hour or two to make sure the order had fully processed and that could be the problem. She said if after that time if I still had no signal to call back tomorrow and they could work on more fixes if need be. Ok, not ideal but if the processing was slow there wasn't much I could do about it. So I decided to just wait and see what it looked like in the morning. Woke up and went into the office to check it out and still blinking red so I was back off to the phone maze this time. Talked to the robot voice again and wound up talking to Jerome in St. Louis. Explained to him again what the situation was and what I'd been told and hopefully he could help. And after a few minutes of looking into my account he came to the conclusion that I needed to talk to someone in what they call the Provisioning Department (more on that later) and they could help. Unfortunately they weren't in on weekends and I'd have to wait till Monday to talk to anyone there. Really? Fuckers. So now I was going to be without service the entire weekend because of some problem that shouldn't have been a problem in the first place in a department I can't reach. That's just fucking great. So I think after that news I was a little short with Jerome from St. Louis for the remainder of the call. It wasn't his fault but he happened to be the one on the other end.


So I wait till Monday to call. And by this point I had been seething about it for the entire weekend. Why, they managed to get the phone disconnected right off but couldn't get the internet service upgrade handled. Not only no upgrade but because of moronic capabilities, no internet service at all. So needless to say I wasn't in a good mood when I had to call in for the third time. But Jerome had given me a tip, he'd given me the responses to the robot voice to get to a person in only about three steps. Thank you Jerome. So Monday at 9:00am I'm dialing away. Got to the robot voice and the questions he was asking didn't fit the responses I had from Jerome. I kept saying them but the voice wouldn't acknowledge them. Are you kidding me? I thought I'd be right through to a person and close to having my problem fixed. Fuck you Jerome. So for the third time I'm explaining my problem to a very nice lady on the other end. Unfortunately she can't make anything out of it and transfers me back to the tech support side. And on hold more. That's one thing I'd left out of all this. You'd be on hold for five minutes minimum in getting connected or getting transferred. I was really starting to think they were doing it on purpose hoping people would just give up and go away. I'm too stubborn so I played their little phone game. So seven minutes later someone in tech support again picks up, again, in what I'm assuming was Mumbai, and I had to repeat my story. Honestly ATT, come the fuck on. You have an account number, I have a problem ticket, why is none of the info traveling along with me in your phone maze? Every person I talked to I had to repeat the issue, and because it was dragging on, the story got longer on each successive retelling. So I'm talking to Mumbai and after about ten minutes on the phone (half that spent on hold while they 'look something up', I swear to God I hate that phrase now) they determine that it needs to be fixed by the Provisioning Department. What? That's just where I was transferred from? Could someone act like they know what the fuck is going on and fix the fucking problem? So I was getting bounced back state side to the Provisioning department for the second time this call. And I'd been on the phone about twenty minutes so far. But at least I was going to be talking to someone who I didn't have to ask to repeat what they were saying every time. Not to sound like Archie Bunker but if you insist on having your call center overseas you need to invest more time in the English lessons. So I'm back in the provisioning department talking to Denise. And at this point I wasn't inclined to be too nice. I had to explain, AGAIN, the whole story and where it was at this point. Which seemed really stupid since I had started out in your shitty department not more than twenty minutes ago. Where did all those notes go? Ass. So she's looking things up and she says to me it looks like the order was never completed. What the fuck? Are you kidding me? Wasting all this time and not having service for the last three to four days because some chair warmer couldn't process the order right? I think at that news she sensed the frustration and almost ready to boil over anger, and she seemed to be very helpful and said she'd fixed that and that when I went home I should have my DSL service ready to go. Well thank you Denise. Good to see at least one person in this whole operation didn't have their head up their ass. Or so it seemed.


So I get home and son of a bitch, that fucking little red light was still blinking at me. Mocking little motherfucker. So I again call the tech support line. For those of you keeping track at home, I would be talking to, at minimum, my seventh person in four days trying to get this fixed. And was far from happy. So I dial up the number and was talking to "Gabrielle" in what I can only guess was Mumbai by the lilt in her voice. Now why do you keep banging on Mumbai, you may be asking? Well, I'd had enough time on hold that I'd been Googling call centers trying to see where I may be going. Turns out that most companies that employ overseas call centers have the center based out of Mumbai, India. I think that article said like 80% of oversea call centers were based out of there for one financial reason or another. So I'm not just pulling Mumbai out of my ass, I did my research on where I was focusing my hatred. So I'm talking to Gabrielle, or at least that's what her stage name is. And I think stage name is the right term. People are already frustrated when they're calling those numbers and even more so when they know 100% for sure they're talking with someone over seas who they can't understand. So you have a lot of American sounding names on the other end of the phone. Instead of Rajiv, Madhuri and Gupta you have Steve, Gabrielle and Tony. Very weak attempt and faking everyone out but they keep doing it. So like I said, it was her stage name. And again, I'm relaying the story up to this point and seeing what could be done. And at this point I know I was a little short with her because I could tell so myself. I'm not an engineer but I'm not a tech idiot. I know my way around computers and a pretty good level so I was kind of questioning some of the things she was telling me to try but what the hell, at this point I didn't have much choice and was along for the ride if I ever wanted to have that little blinking red light go away. She first told me that because of the canceled phone line only one jack in the house would be live and that that would be the dedicated data line. I told her I knew that the one it was plugged into was the dedicated line. When I moved into my house I had to have some rewiring done with the phone lines and at that point, I'd already assigned that jack to be the dedicated DSL line. She wasn't understanding me or wasn't varying from the script. So I take my modem around the house, while Im on the phone, and try it in every jack in the fucking house because this dullard won't acknowledge what I'm trying to tell her. Oh, I'm hating you Gabrielle. So I got done plugging it into every damn jack in the house and no green DSL light. Just like I'd told her. I'd more or less determined at this point that it wasn't anything on my end and that there had to be something up on their end. Either a field not filled in or a switch not flipped or something. So she put's me on hold. I think this was the second time I'd been on hold and I was getting less pleasant by the minute. She tried some other line test on her end that took forever and still didn't fix the problem. So at that point she says I'd have to have a tech come out and check the line. Are you fucking kidding me Gabrielle? That's all you've got for me? Oh, I was done with all of them at that point. Fuck all you all. This was a Monday night and the next available appointment they had was Wednesday from 8-12 or 12-5. FUUUUUUCK!!!!! Ok...deep breath. I just cut in before she'd finished her speech and said put me down for Wednesday morning. She said would that be Wednesday from 8-12? Ummm...that's what the morning is Cupcake, did you seriously ask that question. So she signed me up and was giving the 'are you satisfied with the blah blah blah' end of call bullshit and I think I hung up before she'd finished the last word in her sentence. So if you're taking notes, we're five days into this and no closer to having my service back than we were when I placed the order almost a week ago. Oh, and she also said I'd have to call back so that they could calibrate the modem for the signal. Fuck you Gabrielle. So Wednesday rolls around and I'm up bright and early, ready to go in case they showed up right at 8:00am. That never happens...well I'm sure it happens for some people. I mean, someone has to be first obviously, it just never seems to be me. So I'm waiting. 9:00. And waiting. 10:00. And waiting. 11:00. And waiting. 12:00. ARE YOU SERIOUSLY FUCKING WITH ME ATT? It was 12:03 and not so much as a call to say they were running late. I was livid and on the phone again right then to see what the fuck was up with this short bus of a company. I was going through the phone maze again and just shouting 'AGENT' at the robot voice. After a couple prompts it transferred me to a human. I explained the whole story, again. And I almost asked that lady "why are you asking me all the same questions the robot voice already asked me? Didn't it get passed along? If not what the fuck good it is having that thing there at all? Is it just so you can trick people into thinking something is happening?" But I didn't. And I think she was picking up on the anger in my voice at that point and asked me to hold while she conferenced in someone. That someone turned out to be Richard in the Little Rock call center. So again, I explained the story to him. I think now I'm up to like the tenth time explaining what's going on. And he was very apologetic, not to mention understandable, and was pulling up some records and files. He was a little dumbstruck as to why they even suggested sending a tech out, he said they would have gotten there, checked the line and said, "Yep, lines dead." So he looked everything over and the line was fine and he said it didn't look like the order was ever entered properly from the beginning and hadn't been provisioned properly. Ah, the provisioning department. Let me relay to you folks what he told me happened. Sigh.... So when you cancel your landline but keep the data line, the line goes dead all together. No voice or data. Then the provisioning department has to make the provisions for there being a data only signal going to that line. And that part of the order was never done right. And no one up until now was bright enough to know that. So he fixed the order 'paperwork' and sent it back though. All the while being very apologetic. And I told him flat out, "Richard, you have been more helpful in under ten minutes than everyone else I've talked to over the last six days combined." He then was telling me that while the department is usually pretty quick, depending on the volume of requests, it could take up to two hours for it to be finished. And he gave me the number and extension to call back if it wasn't. I thanked him again for all of his help and he was again apologizing for all of the hassle that this had been and was telling me it shouldn't have taken this long to get resolved. At least I was happy about the acknowledgement that they knew it was a pain in the ass. So I got off the phone with Richard and had to go back to my bedroom to grab something before I went into work and when I went back by my office, all the lights on the modem were solid green. And our long national nightmare was at a close. So Richard from the Little Rock call center, thank you.

Hey Look, A Shiny Thing!

So I didn't really have any sort of event or experience to write about. Well, at least not any to drone on the way you've all grown accustomed to and, I can only assume, love. I do however have a lot of random thoughts that bounce in and out of my head and while I do find them interesting, really aren't enough to qualify in my mind blogworthy on their own. Really like days of free association. Have a thought, that's great, think about it. Oh, what's that over there, there's another thought. That's cool. What was I just talking about? It's a little like that. Who am I kidding, it's exactly like that. So I'm going to umbrella all of these under the banner of my short attention span. And this could be the first of may like this. This particular post will just be the verbal equivalent of leftovers with a few different subjects.


So I have what you might call an epilogue to the Snowpocalypse post. I had cleared off my driveway of snow the afternoon of the Super Bowl (I think I owe the NFL .73¢ just for typing that) and among other things I found out that my 24 year old hand me down snowblower works great when the bottom surface is ice. My driveway still has a good one to two inches of ice on it still. So the paddles didn't get stuck at all on that and got the whole thing cleared off pretty quickly. And in essence I just got rid of all the stuff that would give me traction on the ice. Oh well. And I got the end of the driveway shoveled out flat and even cleared a spot for the mailman to pull up to drop my mail in. I'm not sure who was clearing out our edition roads but the ruts in the road were getting pretty deep. So when I cleared out the end of the driveway I figured that'd be a little helpful. And it looked pretty good and the car backed out pretty easily. And that was the last time I was out on Sunday. I go to leave for work and son of a bitch if the damn blade hadn't come by and fucked up the end of my driveway with all the slush and stuff. That's wrong...frozen slush and stuff. It had gotten cold enough that there was no getting rid of it. It's there till it gets warmer. And I like that the pile the plow got in front of my driveway is tall enough to scrape the bottom of my car. NICE! That has to be great on all the parts underneath. I just hear it scraping every time I back in or out...thanks snow truck dick.
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I'm on record...'Glee' sucks. There, I said it out loud. Everyone, you can quit fucking talking about how great 'Glee' is.  Ahhh..fucking 'Glee'..they're on Oprah, they're the greatest, they're gonna do this song...I give a crap. Go watch your local high school swing choir, it's more interesting. I'm tired of  "Glee" being forced down everyone's collective throat because you're supposed to think it's great. It's like "Ally McBeal" all over again, "Hey, it's interesting because it's different." It's not fucking different, it's a sitcom (and that's generous) and they sing. People that love it make every excuse in the world for it to be good, "it's campy", "it's fun", "it's something different". No, it just stinks. Biggest problem I have with it, it's not funny. They call it a comedy because they have Jane Lynch. Great job, you have Jane Lynch playing Jane Lynch. And don't get me wrong, I think she's great, 40 Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Best in Show. She is really good. But they cast her because they saw "Role Models" and said "hey, do that again every week". And the songs even stink. They had 'Don't Stop Believin' on the pilot and they can't even get a good song after that. You know, when the best part of your show is the guest stars you're able to con onto being on your program, you have a problem. You're really not too far removed from being "The Love Boat", and that's not being fair to the memory of "The Love Boat". Sorry to besmirch your good name Pacific Princess by even putting "Glee" anywhere near your memory.
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I just saw someone recently at a liquor store and she had a shopping cart. And I'm not talking about some downtrodden lady outside the store with her own cartful of sadness. She was using a cart in the liquor store. I guess that also begs the question, when did liquor store start furnishing carts? Now don't get me wrong, I love my liquor. It's one of the main four food groups. Jack Daniels...personal friend of mine. I have a number of bottles of wine at any given moment. Hell, I have my own kegerator for God's sake, so I think it's safe to say I'm a fan. Now I said all that to say this, I have never needed a cart at a liquor store. Let me repeat that, I have never needed a cart at a liquor store. Ok, once I needed a cart for liquor, but it was an extreme situation. A large work group went to an event called "Carb Day" and we rolled into the track with seventeen cases of beer. And apparently my backward state and it's liquor laws only allows for four cases of beer to be bought at one time. So I had to do multiple trips to get it. And it's a little difficult, not to mention heavy, to lug around four cases at once. But that's an event with a lot of people. And seeing how there was no event of any sort this time of year that would really warrant a cart (unless you have some really big Valentine's Day plans), I was left guessing. Now I'm thinking a few things at this point, she's done with AA and this is her big 'fuck off' to that, she's having a party and she's inviting everyone. Not everyone she knows, just everyone. Or she's very lazy and doesn't want to carry anything around the store while deciding between the Zinfandel or the Pinot. Unfortunately I saw this as I had just gotten back into my car and she was going into the store. Because you know if I had seen that while I was in the store I would have had to linger just to see how full someone decides to fill their liquor store cart on a random Thursday.
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I have forgotten so many seeds of ideas to write about it's really starting to get annoying. I at times have a horrible memory. Sometimes it's like that of a crack addicted tree frog, and that's not being fair to actual crack addicted tree frogs. I'll have this good idea, or at least what I'm calling a good idea, and I think it's so good I can write about it later. And later comes and I cannot pull what the thought was. And of course I don't write it down, that's for old people with shit memories. Well call me grandpa because I've forgotten a lot of good subjects. I only wish I could remember some of them. I know I thought they were good because I can remember being excited about thinking what I could write. How's that, I can remember being excited about the topic but I can't remember the topic. Way to go dipshit, what's a brick of Post-It™ notes cost? A dollar? Nice. In one ear and out the other. Gone in sixty seconds, and just as annoying as the Nicholas Cage move. See, now why do I feel compelled to always take a swing at Nick Cage. Ghost Rider, Season of the Witch, National Treasure (any of them), Brining Out the Dead, Zandalee, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, The Weather Man. Oh yeah, that's why.

Snowpocalypse 2011

So I was snowed in for a couple days this week with one of the worst winter storms I can remember. Let me rephrase that, I was iced in this week with one of the worst winter storms I can remember. Now all of this was supposed to start happening on a Monday night and I hadn't heard anything about it till Sunday night. Thank you Facebook for the heads up. And thank you cable tv for keeping me away from my local news as to miss this kind of important news. At least to go out and make sure I had some things on hand in the pantry in case we did get the worst case scenario that all the weather men and weather women were predicting. But I don't usually put a lot of faith in the weather guessers. I can only image how excited they were to have something like this coming up to be wrong about. And man are they wrong. How many jobs could you keep where if you do your job right 35%-40% of the time you'd still be employed? Not many. I guess in baseball you'd be in the hall of fame with a batting average like that, but for weathermen it's....it's not good. We don't need weathermen. Usually it's just an excuse to put hot chicks on t.v. The only reason they have jobs is because we're too too lazy to walk away from the t.v. and stick our heads out the door. 'Channel Whatever WeatherCenter'? More like 'Bullshit Factory'. You mean it's going to get colder when the sun goes down?!? Visibility is 2 miles? I'm not a bird of prey in search of food, I don't care about the visibility. Weather is really only exciting when it kills people or relocates trailers. There's a chance of rain. Yeah, and there's a chance the next Nicholas Cage move will be good too. Let me describe every weatherman in the world: loud jacket, spray tan, big hair, on the verge of suicide and named something fake. Like Dallas Raines. Yes, that's an actual weatherman's fake name, check it out on your Google machine. The only other industry with names that idiotic is porn, but at least that's useful. And can we please stop calling weathermen 'Meteorologists'. Let's save the fancy 'sciencey name' for the guys who actually do science. No one is giving Al Roker a Nobel Prize for saying, "Now here's what's happening in your neck of the woods." So you can imagine my surprise when 'the big one' that they said was going to hit actually hit. I've noticed that when they get this worked up about a storm nothing happens. And when they don't really see it coming, that's when we get punched in the face with eighteen inches of snow. However, having heard this I took a USB drive into work to copy some things off in case I had to work from home. That drive had been working fine. Then I plug it in there (which I'd done a number of times before) and it started acting weird. Like saying it was going to take forty-five minutes to copy something that I knew should only take a few minutes. So I was wrestling with that for, oh, the better part of an hour trying to figure out what the hell was wrong. Now in this time everyone had left. We got cut early and I was trying my damnedest to get out of there before anything kicked in. And this shitty drive wasn't playing nice. I finally had what I needed (or so I thought) and was on my way just in time to be driving home in an ice storm. Well what the fuck, they got it right. So now to try and navigate what is sure to be an interstate full of jackholes who should never drive unless it's sunny and 74. And boy was I not wrong. There was one especially annoying Prius out on the road that I just could not shake and get around. They were like my traffic nemesis that day. I know I've used the term nemesis a few times before. Like shopping nemesis but it fits. I don't know if it was on purpose but every step I took to try and get around them, they got in the way just in a nick of time. That kind of drive just drives me out of my mind. If there was some sort of recording device set up in my car during drives like that your collective jaw would hit the floor at the stream of foulness that comes out. And I admit it. My mom had the misfortune of calling me while I was en route home. And got to hear a lot of it. Actually she even said, "Boy...you really need to do something about that road rage." Not the first time that's happened. She's been in the car with me before so she has an idea. A few Thanksgiving's ago we went out to the large neighboring city that Saturday after Thanksgiving to do some shopping. It was an outdoor mall and I was driving. Now let me set the table on this, I have incrementally started swearing in front of my mom from college till now. I know she doesn't care for the work fuck. Almost everything else is on the table. And I'm a grown ass man and if I drop a few bombs no biggie. So over the course of the years I'd gotten a little more comfortable swearing in front of her. And sometimes it's been hard not to drop the F-Bomb, I say it so much it's more like a comma than a word. So back to the shopping, we were driving in the parking lot trying to find a spot. We came up to a four way stop and apparently of the two of us that pulled up to it, I was the only one that noticed. The ass clown going the other direction just blew on through when it was my turn, to which I exclaimed, "Well don't fucking mind me!!". It was a reflex. And immediately after I said I it occurred to me that I had said it. And it wasn't like a bad reception thing and maybe it got garbled. She was sitting two feet away. And it's not like her ears were gonna burst in to flames like everyone's eye's burst into flames after Janet Jackson's nipple came out during the superbowl, curious where all the blind people are from that. And then I waited. And waited. And nothing, not even a sigh as to say, "Really...was that necessary?" So I didn't say anything and everything went along as normal. But that was the last time I did that and I've caught myself several times since then but managed to change it at the last minute from HBO swearing to TBS swearing.

Anyway, back to the jackwagon Prius that was impeding my getting home. Did I also mention they were hitting the brakes at random for no reason. Well done you dick. I can see it if a stop is coming up or if you're making a turn. But you're on the interstate with no exits near....quit riding the brake in the ice you moron. When you look in your rearview mirror and wonder what caused the pileup behind you, you can know it was because of your random brake hitting. Dick. Which I'm sure you were doing with a smug sense of superiority and holier than thou attitude. You know, because you're saving the world because you drive a Prius. You're not saving the world. You're just a pretentious douchebag who wants everyone to think what a great person you are for driving that car. And this was a pretentious douchebag who had no business being out in any sort of weather that you couldn't describe as Phoenix. This is the point where I'd like to say I got around them, flipped them off and was on my way having put them safely behind me. But I can't. They managed to block my every move to get by all the way to my exit. There's a part of me that wouldn't have minded seeing them on the news later as one of the many slide offs the police were dealing with. The impotent rage subsided and I was finally home. God, I love that phrase. Impotent rage. If you're being honest with yourself you've had it too. Especially in traffic. Where you get so mad and worked up about something and you will never get to have the outlet you want for all that anger. You just have to choke it back knowing you can't (or depending on the circumstance, shouldn't) let that rage out. And any of it you do let out just floats away up into the atmosphere no where close to it's intended target. Impotent rage. Works for a lot more instances than just in the car. Feel free to use it whenever, you don't even need to credit me. So back to getting home, I did have to make one stop. They had been calling for a lot of ice in my neck of the woods. Like an inch plus of ice. Like downed tree limbs and power lines ice. So I figured I would pick up some extra fire wood for the fireplace just in case. And I guess 73% of the city had the same thought. Normally you can go to just about any gas station this time of year (check local listings) and find the pre-bundled firewood. And the last time I'd been out I'd seen a bunch of it at a couple of the local gas stations. So on my way home I figured no problem, I'll just stop there. It's on the way, and I'll be set just in case. No firewood. Went to the next station. No firewood. What the hell people? It's not milk, it's fire wood. I guess other people had the same idea and they'd also heard about it earlier than I had to go buy their wood in a panic. I finally found a station that had some so I got a few bundles and went home. That last mile or so was when I noticed my windshield wipers weren't really working. They were moving. They were just encased in ice and not really wiping anything. That was fun. Got home and a couple hours after I'd gotten home I saw an email that was calling off work for the next day. Well, not calling it off but saying don't go into the office. Now who was looking smart for bringing some stuff home? Must have been someone else because that shitty drive of mine died. What that hell man! It wasn't that old and it was babied. I really baby most of my electronics and that was no different. I tried for the better part of an hour to make that fucking thing work. And nothing infuriates me quicker than electronics that should be working just fine but for some inexplicable reason just decide to tell me to go to hell and stop working. Oh, the urge to take a hammer to that thing was growing. Idid have the thought that I could maybe save some of what was on it so it hasn't tasted the hammer. Yet. I managed to get what I needed to get done done through strategic use of my sent folder. It wasn't as quick as I would have liked but I managed. Only out of work for two days. The weather didn't get as bad as all the talking weather heads had forecasted. Really? They were wrong? GASP!! I guess I should take away from this that I depend on technology too much for as easily as it will fail me and that I should keep more firewood on hand in the winter time just in case things ever do break bad and I need to use it for more than just the nice ambience of having a fire. Oh, and weathermen suck. That too.

You Do Know You're Using That Cart Wrong?

So I was out doing some shopping this weekend. You know, it's amazing how many of these start with me being out shopping and how other people are irritating. That either means I'm a psychopath or that other people really are stupid. I'm going to go with the second option because that makes me happy. Let me explain. I have all my Christmas shopping done. And it's December 13th. That has never happened. Let me repeat that...that has never happened. Can I give a big thank you to the internet. Aside from exposing the world to Youtube, email and German pornography, you have made holiday shopping so much better. Because of you internet, I can browse the aisles at Amazon.com and not have to worry about bumping into a single self absorbed, clueless, meandering, cell phone yammering holiday shopper. Thank you Amazon.com. You make the world a better place to be.

I had some shopping to do that did not involve buying presents. Just standard grocery shopping and picking up some necessities. Like wine, cheese and bread. We're due a good snow storm so you prepare your way and I'll prepare mine. As the story goes, everyone is always out buying milk, eggs and bread. So the hack joke goes "I guess people don't want to be stranded without being able to make French toast.". Which isn't 100% true. If that was truly the case there'd also be a run on eggs, cinnamon, buttermilk and challah bread. You make French toast your way and I'll make it mine. Not any old ingredients will do. And if you're really getting into it, you'd need a box of Frosted Flakes for a coating. But that's a different blog and I'm here to complain about other people and lack of attentiveness when shopping, not about how to make some damn good French toast.

So I just had groceries to buy. And you would think that wouldn't be too bad. And it wasn't at the first stop I made. They'd recently rearranged some things at the store I like so it's thrown me the last few times I'd gone there trying to remember what was where but it's not too bad and I got out of there without much of any incident. There were a couple of people who were riding right up behind me in the freezer section. Man is that annoying anywhere, not just in frozen foods. And I try not to do it. But when I'm looking for something and someone is riding right up behind me, like invading my eighteen inches of personal space riding up, then I get a little pissed. And I'm going to take my sweet ass time looking for something I know isn't here now because you are being a jackhole and pressing your damn cart up in my personal space trying to get me to move. Sorry about your luck. Wait your turn, ass. You know, there is kind of a social contract we all enter into when we're out in public. Like we won't do certain things to one another. You know, like you won't ride up behind the person in front of you because you think you're entitled to look in that section of the freezer case and I won't tip over your fucking cart because your wheels keep hitting the back of my feet. So I got checked out there and on to store number two.

Now when I say I was just grocery shopping you would think that I'm just at a grocery store and how bad could that be. And you'd be wrong. I do go to a Walmart to grocery shop. You can stop with your eye rolling and any other thing like that. I don't care where the stuff comes from and I don't care about the CNBC specials about it. I'm no tree hugging, granola eating, 'everyone is equal' kind of person. I want my stuff as inexpensive as I can get it and if that's from a Walmart I could care less what anyone thinks about it. Same brands, cheaper price, thank you Sam Walton. The downside of this is you are dealing with the "People of Walmart". If you've never seen the emails you are really doing yourself a disservice. They are some of the best emails I get on a routine basis. I just hope I never pop up in any of them.

So back to my shopping. I just had a few things to get for Christmas dinner. Actually, Christmas Eve dinner. My family has always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve. Goes back a few generations to coming home from midnight mass and opening presents. I remember me and my brother and mom going to Christmas Eve candlelight services at our church and then going back home and it was amazing how Santa had always hit our house when we were out and none of our grandparents had seen him there. One of my favorite pictures was of one of my grandparents catching part of Santa as he was leaving the front door (we didn't have a fireplace or chimney) and the proof he'd been there. We still have the Polaroid of him going out the front door. Those are the memories that make Christmas the best time of year. But I didn't feel that warm and fuzzy out shopping today.

I had a list of things to get for my Christmas Eve dinner and I really just wanted to get them and go home. It was cold and rainy and I didn't really feel much like being out. So I was on a mission. And it was amazing how many people were just blocking the way. Now, when you're shopping, regardless of where you are, you should assume the normal rules of the road apply. Like you stay on the right side. Good God, how many people just forget any sort of driving etiquette and just park their damn carts where ever they want and just push them like they lost their damn minds. Seriously. I'm navigating the aisle like a normal person and you have these people who are just wandering from side to side, unaware of their surroundings (sometimes due to being wrapped up in a cell phone call) and you have to look out for them. I'm not saying what I'm doing is any more important than what the other mindless human cattle is out doing, but at least I'm trying to be aware of my surroundings and trying not to impede other peoples progress. Holy fuck, I wish other people had even the slightest interest in that.

Have you ever had a 'shopping nemesis'? I did when I was there. Seemed like her only purpose was to get in my way and make everything harder. First let me say, I cannot stand people who use their carts wrong. And by that I mean they pull them behind them instead of pushing them as they were intended to do. That's why there is a handle on them, dumbass. You push them from there and not pull them from the front. The fact you have to keep apologizing to people should tell you you're doing it wrong, idiot. And this person kept popping up in the same aisles as me. I tried to shake her but it just wouldn't work. Kind of like in the horror movies when the teenagers at the campsite are running away but just can't seem to get away from the psychotic killer who is limping along behind them. That's kind of what it was like.

So what's my takeaway from this when I get the overpowering urge to tell some people that they're shopping wrong?
1) Stay on the right side of the aisle, this isn't England so the standard rules of traffic still apply.
2) If you're pulling your cart behind you, just know you're doing it wrong.
3) When you leave your cart blocking the aisle and I have to move it to get through, don't look at me as if I'm the jerk.
4) Put the cell phone away, whatever you're talking about is not that important. Trust me.

Yeah, I think that about sums it up. Happy shopping.

Ho, Ho, Ho!

So I managed to get my Christmas lights up outside of the house. And I didn't kill myself doing it. Funny story with all that, and I may not be using the word funny right. The weekend before the lighting I got all the lights out of the attic and tested them. I knew already some were out on my outside tree. I was bitching last year about lights burning out on the tree and not being able to find any replacement ones because every place was out of lights on December 12th. Which that makes sense, middle of the Christmas season but lets not stock any more lights. That's awesome. So I had to get two new strings for the outside tree this year but I knew I was going to have to get some so that was no biggie. But the weird thing about those, only half the stand was out. Not a few bulbs, half the strand. It stopped halfway down the sting. How the hell does that happen? So almost exactly half the strand was on and the other half out. Never seen only half a strand not work. However all the icicle lights for the house worked. I picked up some replacement tree lights during the week and was ready to go for the weekend.

I started fairly early on a Saturday (early for me anyway) because I had other errands to run and wanted to get everything done in time for the ND game at Yankee stadium that night. Second to the last game of the season so I wanted to make sure I could see it and it was at Yankee stadium. Good weekend for football at baseball stadiums. Northwestern played Illinois at Wrigley field and that was jacked up because apparently they couldn't do the math right at one of the brightest schools in the country. Northwestern didn't figure out they couldn't' fit a whole football field in Wrigley field and not have players kill themselves in one of the endzones. So it was like a backyard game of football, they all had to go toward one end when they had the ball. I would have been pissed if I bought tickets in that other endzone but it made for good tv. Ok, so back to the lights. It took me a while to remember how I had everything rigged last year. I only have two outlets in my garage so there's a lot of extension cords and splitting going on. After about a half hour of detangling and laying out strands and extension cords I got it figured out and remembered how I'd done it the prior year. It's not Rockefeller Center but I have a certain way I want things up on the house. Got the icicle lights on the garage peak up pretty quickly. If you're doing higher up lights and don't want to get too high up on a ladder, or on the roof, I recommend a light pole. It's a telescoping pole with interchangeable ends. One is for placing string lights and then take that off and you can screw in the light holders for roof lines. Pop the holder under the shingle then just twist the pole off the holder. Takes about three of them to get the feel for it but it's great. I borrowed a friends last year and she told me to keep it because she wasn't putting house lights up anymore, just on the shrubs and tree. Score! That probably saved me from having a Clark W. Griswold moment with my lights and falling off the ladder.

So I got the garage half of the front of the house done and was wiring up for the house half. Plugged in the icicle lights for there and son of a bitch, both strings were bad! Only half of them were coming on on each strand. WTF? They both just worked a week ago. Yeah, that sounds about right. You suck!! So I knew at that point I wasn't going to be able to finish when I wanted to. I'd have to get replacement ones for that too when I was out running errands and because I knew that where I had to go (Toys R Us and my local mall) I wouldn't be home with enough light to finish up by the time I got home. Now you know how I am with that kind of stuff (please see previous posts on my impatient nature) and that just made the cursing at inanimate objects start flying out of my mouth and a pretty good rate. You know, because that was the sensible thing to do. And I was right about Toys R Us, that was a special kind of hell on a Saturday. I was earning the 'favorite uncle' title then. Man, I hate that place. I mean I really fucking hate that place. No one pays attention to anyone else, the aisles are too small (one confused parent or grandparent blocks like four or five directions easily) and hardly any checkouts open. Then there's the obligatory screaming kid that the parents think is cute. Guess what Mom and Dad? They're not. Deal with your kid, that's not helping the headache this shitty store brought on. If the theory from "What Dreams May Come" is right and everybody's hell is different, I know mine would involve a Toys R Us in some form or fashion.

The upside to all this is that I did get all the errands finished up in time for the kickoff of the ND game. And really, compared to Toys R Us, the mall was bearable and I had to go to Walmart too and by comparison that seemed practically empty. And got all the light stringing wrapped up on the house and tree before the Colts game that Sunday. Except for one timer not working. Looks like it should be working but it won't turn on. Couldn't find the instructions (even though I was pretty sure I was doing it right) so I ran to Walmart to see if they still had the same one. Which they did, so I unpackaged it and read the instructions there and yes, I was programming it right. So much for the digital timer still working. But I finally figured out that when you have the time set and plug in whatever, even if it's in the 'On' window, it won't come on. Has to be plugged in before the 'On' time. That's really kind of stupid. Thanks Brinks, high tech timer that works funny. Every other timer in the world comes on when you plug something in and it's in the ON position. So I had all the lights up and was going to put the bulbs on the outside tree that week. Didn't have time before the game but would be able to after work.

I got home from work on Monday and was going to have the time to hang al the bulbs on the tree. I have several kinds and sizes that I've picked up over the years. So I went outside with a ladder, the garage door opener and my phone. I closed the door and was hanging things on the tree. When I closed the door it sounded like something big fell off a shelf. I don't have a lot of shelving an nothing big and I wasn't sure what fell but I was going to have a look when I went back inside. Little did I know, I wasn't getting back inside. What that sound was was a spring on the garage door breaking. If you've ever had one go out that effectively means your door isn't going up. And garage doors are heavy. So I locked myself out of the house inadvertently. I didn't have any keys on me, just the garage door opener. For the broken door. When I tried to open the door it went up about six inches and then back down. SLAM! And it was drizzling and cold...score! There's that initial 'oh shit' feeling when you realize you're locked out and don't have keys on you. I was patting myself down like a overzealous TSA agent trying to make sure I wasn't just missing the keys in some pocket or something. Then I was looking for anything to help pry the door up enough to get it on the track to raise up the rest of the way. Once you get the door up about two feet, the top part is on the track and it gets significantly easier to push. But I couldn't get it lifted by myself. Well you think the cursing was bad on the lights, it was nothing compared to this. If you've locked yourself out of the house, don't have your keys on you, can't get the garage door raised up, it's drizzling and cold out and the first word out of your mouth isn't fuck...you have anger issues. Fortunately I had my phone on me to call someone. Called a friend of mine and we got the door up in like a minute. That started to ease the aneurysm that was surely coming on. What's the takeaway for all this? I guess it would be to have your keys on you at all times regardless of what you think you may need them for. Or at the very least have a second key hidden somewhere outside for just such an emergency. Lesson learned. However, all the outside and inside lights and decorations are up and I am ready for the season. So bring on Christmas!

Bad Swipe

So I recently had the overpowering urge to buy someone else's groceries. Twice. Let me explain. I think by now I've pretty well established that I can be a child when I want to, and I think I've also pretty well established that I'm impatient. That may not be a strong enough word for it. I would be the type of person who stands in front of a microwave and yells "hurry up!". So not a good combination. I guess I'm not impatient with everything, I don't want to sound like a psychopath. Just mundane stuff like errand running. I'd rather just knock that out so I can get to things I would rather be doing. I guess that would be a better way to describe it. So why have I wasted all this time describing my neurosis? Well it came on strong on my last trip out shopping. It all started out innocently enough, grocery shopping and doing pretty good. Not too many in-the-way people to dodge and I was finding what all was on my list. It was a crisp fall night and was seeing some snow flurries. I don't know what it is but I've always loved being out in weather like that. Not a full on blizzard but weather like that I've always liked so I was enjoying the time out. Mark the time of death on that though. I was finishing up my shopping and went to checkout and there was one line open, but the lady in front of me was just about done so I figured my timing was great. I'd get done unloading just as she was getting finished up and then all my cereal and flour could take their trip on the conveyor belt to my cart. So the lady in front of me was clueless? An idiot? Oblivious? All of the above? That's it! She'd gotten all of her things rang up, in her cart and then started to dig for her wallet. Really? Didn't think to have that ready in the amount of time it took the checker lady to scan all your stuff? Sigh. Lady jerk. So she finally found that and she swiped the card and the little swiper beeped back at her. So she swiped it again. And again. And again. And again. Then tried it slower. And again. And again. She finally handed it to the cashier to see if she could punch in the card number on her little pad and at the same time looks at me and says, "It doesn't seem to be reading my card." Really Einstein? Only took you seventeen tries to figure that one out? You should apply for Jeopardy right now and get ready to break their bank. So as the cashier is typing in the number you get the obligatory, "but I just used it at the last store and it worked just fine." Listen lady, I know you want everyone to know you're not broke and can afford the Eggos and potatoes you just bought. Well, are trying to buy, but please don't stand there with the vapid look in your face giving me a brief synopsis of your financial history. I could not care less. So as she's elaborating on how it just worked at the last place the cashier let her know it was rejected that way too. Now, you would think at this point in an effort to speed things up and to take others into consideration you may try a different means of payment. Nope, right back to trying it again on her little swiper. And the cashier was starting to look fidgety too. I can't blame her when she has this idiot in front of her who can't figure out how to work her card. I was just about ready to just tell her to get out of the way, swipe my card to pay for it just to get this dipshit out of the way. Seriously. That's where I was. Of course if I do that then all of a sudden I'm the asshole for making a point. I'm not saying my time is any more valuable than hers but come on, have a little consideration for everyone else around you. So the cashier finally flags down a manager or supervisor or whatever you call the person with the bracelet of keys. What does she do? She takes the card and grabs a piece of notebook paper and folds it around the card, kind of making a credit card taco out of it, (which by the way, credit card taco would be a great album name for any band) and swipes it through the reader and I'll be damned if it didn't read on the first time. I'm not sure what magical qualities that piece of notebook paper had but I could not have been happier. So then I proceeded to get my things checked out. Slowly. Hadn't noticed while I was unloading my things but this particular cashier was slooooow. Anyway, before too long everything was through, my card read on the first swipe and I was on my way to stop number two.

Things went well at the beginning of store number two too. Got a great parking spot, not too crowded and finding everything I needed to get. I was getting ready to check out from here too and I was walking up and down the main aisle trying to guess which lane would be my best bet. That's always a fun game to play against everyone else in the store. Then I happened to notice an open lane. You know the types of check outs where they have two lanes one behind the other and you can never quite tell if the line is for the front one or the back one? Well that's what happened there. I think people thought they'd be cutting in line but he was just standing there waiting for the next customer. Oh, and I planned on being that next customer. Unfortunately, so did this college girl with her huge damn cart of stuff. Shit! Got right in in front of me. Now to be fair, she didn't even see me coming in from the other direction. Not like that scene from 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles' where Steve Martin and Kevin Bacon lock eyes when they're both trying to hail a cab. She was just a little closer and since I didn't want to start running behind my cart and looking like a complete idiot to get there first, so goes my open line. And when I say college girl I'm just assuming because she was wearing the uniform. Pink headband, hoodie, sweatpants with something across the ass, Ugg boots and enough makeup to make it look like you wanted to look like you weren't trying. But you were. Seriously, I think a memo went out to all women of that age that that is your Friday-Sunday uniform. Oh, and her fucking cellphone attached to her ear for almost all of what you're about to hear. So she's trying to unload her cart at the same time keeping the phone in the crook of her neck and shoulder. That tells me one thing, her major isn't Kinesiology or else you'd know you can't reach out to grab something and still keep your arm in that position. Plus, isn't it kinda rude to just be yammering away on your cell not even acknowledging the person standing there? I mean as far as she was concerned he may as well been a plant. I understand they're just a name-badge scanning your Pop-Tarts but I'm not saying you need to get filled in on their life's story and see what they're doing this weekend. Just a little common courtesy would be nice. So everything is scanned and ready to be paid for and once again, never occurred to her to get her card out before right then. Too busy droning on about whatever nonsense she was talking about. Then as if a great karmic wind blew through while she was looking though her purse, the phone slips, falls and breaks into three pieces. The undescribeable joy that went through my body seeing that was fantastic. (I almost said undescribeable glee, but I hate that show so I'm boycotting the word all together on principal.) How's that broken phone working out for you now you self-absorbed, little ass. And then before pulling the card to pay she proceeds to try and reassemble her phone. Are you fucking kidding me? Holy fuck, you inconsiderate little shithead. I just wanted to push her down and shove her stupid cart full of groceries into a wall. Now to let you know, I'm locked into this line now unless I want to take everything I have off the conveyor belt and put it back into my cart and go hunt for another line. So I'm along for however long this fiasco drags out. She hands the guy what looks like a credit card but I'm guessing it must have been a gift card. I guess this because he told her there wasn't enough on it. Sigh. So then she starts playing the "can you take this off?" game and firing Bagel Bites and frozen pizza back at him to try and get in under the total. Did I mention she was back on her damn phone by this time? Aaaaahhhh, put down your shitty green phone and focus. Still not under so she keeps scouring the cart trying to see what else she can give back. Then she says, "Oh wait, I may have cash." Well hallelujah. And proceeded to pull out a clump of bills from her purse. Really? What are you five? Maybe I'm too anal retentive and have all my bills nicely tucked away in my wallet so I can tell what I have and not all crumpled up in a pocket like Beaver Cleaver when he's trying to buy a movie ticket. I halfway expected to see a yo-yo and slingshot too. So she's sorting out and straightening out her bills and I'm again having the overpowering urge to push her aside and just pay for her cartful of shit just so I can be on my way. I can tell just from looking at her if I did that I'd get the snotty, "Oh my God!" , or I guess "OMG" would be better for the age as I would have to assume she'd be addicted to texting too. She'd be embarrassed and pissed but she'd always have a story to tell. I'd just have had to let her know that when she told this story in the future (and she would definitely tell this story) just know you would always be telling it wrong. But I didn't pay for her stuff so no worry about the story. And at this point of rummaging through her purse she finally told the person on the other end she'd call them back. Great idea, unless you were on the verge of curing all known forms of cancer I'm betting that call could wait. So apparently between the cash and whatever that card was she couldn't pay for it. Now this is a first for me to witness, she just said she was fed up and just to put it all back. Are you fucking kidding me sweetheart!?! You drag this whole transaction out for this long and because you don't have your shit together, making people wait on you, then you just blow it off and leave? Oh, I can't even find the words to describe the white, blinding rage I was feeling toward that girl right then. I don't know her, and never will, but I can tell you I hate her. So take that. The cashier pushes the cart aside and asks one of the other associates if they could at least put the frozen and refrigerated stuff back. Then while he was ringing me up was talking about how he's never seen that before, to which I whole heartedly agreed. Couldn't tell him what I was actually thinking as we were in public. Although as I got to the point where it was my turn to pay (which I was able to do by the way, score one for being a grownup) I was feeling the rage quickly subsiding. I suppose it could have been worse. She could have been trying to pay with an out of state, third party check. Which does remind me of the check writer incident but that's another story.

Isn't It Time You Settled?

So I hadn't written anything for a long time, I had kind of been busy but not really busy on anything that was worthy to write about. Not like the other stuff I had was either but here we are. So what is it that I felt was worthy of picking up the digital pen again? I've decided to jump back into the dating pool. That sound you may have just heard was the collective sigh of relieved women now having another bald, fat option to look past. But I'm aware on the other side of that same coin, any fruit I get at this point is going to be on the bruised side of fresh. So it evens out. And I know I'm very bad at being single, which is bad considering that I am still single. I can't really take advantage of being single because I didn't assume at 38 I would still be single. I'm not prepared, meaning I haven't really maintained any of what I've got at presentation conditions. It's function only. So I think I'm starting a little behind the curve on this particular foray back into things. I've never let being unprepared stop me before so why start now. I decided to hop back in with eHarmony, see some prior posts on my experiences there. Why go back to that service then you may be asking? Well a lot of it has to do with being lazy. Maybe that's the wrong word. I already had a profile filled out there and it was going to take a lot less time to update an existing profile than it was to going to be to create a totally new one. Oh, and it was cheap. I'd been off their service for over two years and periodically they'd send me offers to renew. Of which I'd ignored all of them. Well, then I got the proverbial 'offer you can't refuse'. Three months for the price of one plus one extra month for free if you signed up by a certain date. Oh, I'm on board there. Well played Dr. Neil Clark..well played. You have hooked me. And I've wasted money on worse things so why not give this a go. That gives me one third of a year to look. And I'm going into it with a slightly different attitude, like it might actually work. How refreshing. That's got to help, right? A couple friends of mine are getting married and they met on here so I guess not all the commercials are damn, dirty lies. But I am looking at it a little differently. Aside for thinking it may work. Seeing how I was on it for so long the last time and nothing came of if I have a slightly different perspective. Or at least I think I do.

Let me set the table on what I mean. There's a lot of the same on there. By that, I mean that I've noticed a lot of the same things in every profile. It's like they were issued a primer and had to fill things out a certain way. Kind of like looking through real estate ads. You know, that's a really good parallel. And I've started to find some code words in profiles much like there were code words in real estate listings. Like cozy means small and handyman special means the place is a dump. I've seen some similar things in the ladies profiles. One of the first one's is in the religion category. Now anyone who knows me knows I'm not overly churchy. I'm not sure why, it just never really stuck with me. I went through all the usual things - baptized, confirmation classes and whatever else you do but I got older and like I said, it just didn't stick. I think I'm a Protestant of some extraction. At least I think there are different types, anyway, if there are I'm one of them. But that's kind of like saying if a cow is born in a tree it's a bird, I wouldn't say I'm a fanatic. But I see a lot of the profiles under the religious affiliation marking "spiritual but not religious". Huh...um, how's that work? Or I guess I mean to say what the hell is that? Let me get this straight...you're not religious but you're spiritual? Hmmm... I'm not honest but you're really interesting. Get off the fence, you either are or aren't. So that tells me a little something and at the very least it tells me I'm not going to miss kickoff on Sundays due to the sermon running over. There's another section that says "Some additional things I'd like you to know about me;" and almost to a woman they all say "just ask!". That's great but it didn't say what other questions do I have, it says other things you'd like me to know. Like other information you'd like to offer up without being asked. Which leads to another one that seems to be a go to response, 'you'll just have to find out'. Thanks. Next. Oh, and the no picture having ones. Sorry. Click. Really? Can't manage a picture? Everything is a something plus a camera. Heck, if you have a cell phone odds are you have a camera weather you want one or not. And I have pictures of me posted, and they're pretty representative of me. I'm not going to say you'll enjoy the representation but there it is. I know I'm not every woman's cup of tea...actually, I'm pretty sure I've gotten a few to hate tea. However, it's not like someone won't know who I am because they were so far off. So for me, that's like an instant skip. Could that be shallow? You bet. But I feel it's a fair shallow. I showed you mine so you show me yours. So there.

In another section there is the field, "The most important thing I'm looking for in a person is:" and what I see all the time is......? Sense of humor. DING DING DING. I like to think I'm funny. Who doesn't? I mean who doesn't think they're funny. Not who doesn't think I'm funny, but come on people. That should be a short list of who doesn't think I'm funny. I'm a riot, who wouldn't think I'm funny. So let's establish that I'm funny. At least I've been told that a lot so it's not just me. Ok, so sense of humor is big or so I keep reading. Here's the rub, it seems that as long as that sense is hooked on to, let me see, oh I know, a Zac Effron or whatever the name of that vampire guy is from the "Twilight" movies. Run right past either of those two guys to get to a Steven Wright or a Jon Stewart. Noooooo, that does not happen folks. Not that I want to take either of those to guys down but I never see them in the same kinds of circles as Zac and the vampire. What they should say is "a sense of humor on a guy that I think is hot." That would be more honest. Which brings me to my second point in that field, honesty is the second trait they all seem to say they're searching for. So an honestly funny guy. Guess honesty goes both ways, like being honest with you picture. Yes, we are back to this. I don't want to obsess but there's a lot of dishonest pictures by you women on there. And completely irrelevant pictures. I don't want to sound so hung up on the picture part but there's no depth to my shallowness. That's not fair. I guess I think if I can toss out pictures that are an honest (see, there's that word) representation of what I have going on you should too. That's great you went to the Bahamas, I don't need the pictures of the beach. Great that you went to Italy, but I don't need to see a picture of the Coliseum. I signed up for a dating service, not Zagats online. Or if you do show a picture, try to use the zoom feature. Hear tell that's pretty common on cameras these days. Do I even need to say this? I guess so. Why put a picture of yourself up there at...whatever the event is, that is so far away not only can I not tell if that's you but can't tell who you are in the crowd. What are you trying to hide? Gout? A goiter the size of a grapefruit? I don't know. So there's that. And while I'm on this tangent, here's another thing that I thought was odd in one of the profiles. And for once it's not picture related. Ok, it's kinda picture related but has nothing to do with a goiter. One of the ladies I got matched up with had some captions with the pictures posted, all the better. One had her and her son in it. No problem there. I've kind of come to the conclusion that the odds get greater every day that if I am in fact going to date someone, at this stage they're going to have a kid. Or kids. And I have no problem with that. I like kids and would like to have some some day. Preferably before I retire. Anyway, this lady had a caption that was something like, "a picture of me and my nine year old son who's my best friend." What the what? I like to think she just chose some words poorly. Your best friend? Really? A nine year old? Maybe say 'me and my buddy', or 'me and the little man' but 'me and my nine year old son who'd my best friend'. Ok. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the sentiment behind something like that but if you, at 37, consider your best friend to be a nine year old, son or not....um....next please.

So there's where I'm at, however, enough of me whining and complaining about things I can't control. I'll keep on going till I either find someone who'll put up with me or the subscription runs out, whichever comes first. As developments warrant, I'll keep you all posted with those stories...I'm sure you can't wait.