Land of Oz

Movie$

I just came back from the movies – Lord of the Rings – real good movie by the way. And long. But that isn’t what I’m ranting about. The prices!! Not the ticket – at $7.50, it’s steep, but I can see paying to see some movies on the big screen. (This one is one of them) not that those big screens are so big anymore.

My gripe is the munchies. Holey space crap!! A small container of pop corn is $3.50 and a pack of Milk Duds is $2.50. At Seven/Eleven on a bad day, I can get Milk Duds for under 80 cents. And the popcorn – really!. What is the cost of the contents of one popcorn order? A couple of pennies – maybe? I would guess the cardboard box the popcorn is in costs more than the popcorn itself.

I think there was a “special” of small popcorn and soda for $6.50. I can get a six pack from a vending machine for $4.80 and I guarantee there is more soda in that six pack than what the theater gives you. I can understand making a profit, but how about being realistic. There’s no way (obviously I have no kids) I’m buying anything to eat at a theater.

It’s just one more reason for NOT going to the theater. I can stop by the rental place on the way home, get three new release movies for $3, pickup a 6 pack of soda for $4 and a box of three microwave popcorn packs for $2 and then can sit around in my underwear, not have to listen to the loud-mouths behind me or try to see around the jumping idiots in front of me and when the projectionist is too lazy to get off his fat ass and focus the picture, I can pause, rewind, and see it again. Let’s see, $9 for three movies and more than I can eat or drink in comfort, or $14 to see a movie on a screen not a heck of a lot larger than my television – rough decision.

2fers: Videos and Munchies

Change ≠ Good

I have a pretty low-key Saturday morning routine that involves listening to the radio while I make a few regular stops at stores and bakeries, and usually ends with a magazine at a coffee shop. A couple stops include hardware stores. Last weekend I stopped by one Ace store and found they have (in the process anyway) completely rearranged things. I turned around and left.

This weekend I stopped by the other Ace hardware store I often go. Wouldn’t you know it, they rearranged stuff as well. Not completely, but still… I walked in and went to where they used to store the gasket material. Not there. After asking I found they moved it clear across the store.

Why do stores do this? I don’t understand it at all. Customers finally figure out where everything is and then they go and change it. Either leave the stuff alone or take the time and effort to educate your help on where the stuff is hidden.

These days, it’s not like you count on the clerks to help you out. They are usually more clueless than you are. I don’t think I’m asking too much. I don’t expect them to know how to use the stuff – let’s face it, a hammer can be a terrifying tool – not too mention more esoteric stuff like hand scrapers and sawtooth set pliers. I do expect them to be familiar with what they do have though. At another hardware store (I like hardware stores if you haven’t guessed) last week I was looking for alligator clips. I was standing in the electrical aisle looking at them when the clerk asked if he could help. When I asked him about alligator clips, he was still thinking about them when I found a bag full. As I picked a bag of alligator clips from the wall, he finally said he didn’t think they carried them – sigh…

added 2-29: Rats!! Does this suck or what? My favorite radio station - the one I mentioned earlier, has changed their programming. They've taken some of the shows I really like and replaced them with shows I really hate. If I had to pick one show on NPR that I really, really hate and wish someone would take it behind a barn and bury it, it's Car Talk. An hour of two guys who love to hear themselves laugh for no reason at all. And now my radio station has picked them up. Crap!

added 2-23: Aargh! I went to a craft store today and they had moved everything around as well! Around Oct I went there looking for fabric remnants and they were in the front. In November I went back looked up front, I found out they had been moved to the back. Today I went to the back and found they had been moved back to the front!! Stupid stores. I went looking for bead and what used to be a one wall display is now scattered over half the store. Clock kits and wood carving tools were in at least two different areas. What is it with these people.

2fers: Favorite Radio Station and Favorite Hardware Store

Two Pair

Same sex marriages, gay marriages, whatever you call them. I don’t quite get what all the fuss is about. So two guys or two gals want to marry each other – so what? I can’t believe some of the reasons that have been brought up against this. The Christians are certainly up in arms about it. The bible again – as if there isn’t anything that can’t be proved with judicious use of various quotes from that text. The Catholics say it isn’t a way to further human race – which is now around 6 billion too many – and should be banned. Does anyone really think that a few thousand gay marriages are going to stunt the growth of humanity??

Here’s one that was just stated recently,

"It's time for the city to stop traveling down this dangerous path of ignoring the rule of law. That's my message to San Francisco," he said Friday night.

He by the way is Arnold Schwarzenegger – he of the Terminator movies. Has he watched his own movies?? His message of being a nice lawful guy is just crippling cops instead of killing them. Stealing cars, blowing up people and buildings, killing cops and running over innocent people; that’s OK. Same sex marriage on the other hand is what he considers “this dangerous path.”

What is it with people. Can’t people just leave others alone? Who cares what they do in their bedroom with each other. As long as they’re of age, it’s none of my or your business. As long as they do it quietly and don’t hassle me, they should feel free to do what they want to do.

2fers: One Side and The Other

Paper or plastic?

I don’t quite understand the idea behind the design of the plastic bags used mostly in grocery and department stores. Today, I bought some groceries using one of those plastic bins they sometimes have near the door for those of us who don’t need the truck size, wobbly-wheeled, shopping carts. Anyway, I had maybe 7 or 8 items and could carry it very easily. After checking out I had 4 plastic bags, none full of stuff.

These stupid bags have so many problems – other than floating across the landscape like so many small indestructible ghosts. First, you’d better not have anything with a sharp corner edge in your bag. It doesn’t matter how light or how small it is, that corner is going to puncture the bag and a tear will result. You can quite easily carry a couple of gallons of juice in the bag as long as their bottles. Put a half-pint cardboard container of milk in the bag, however, and one of those corners is going to rip your bag.

How often have you left a store after “double-bagging.” There are a lot of store that do that no matter what you buy. I’ve come out of some grocery stores with a jar of peanut butter in a double-bag. Besides, if you’ve got one of those sharp-edged bag killers in there, the second bag will tear just as fast as the first one. For those stores that seem to always double-bag, how about buying a stronger bag?

2fers: Plastic Bag Crochet and Sierra Club Plastic Bags

been awhile

Haven't been here for a spell. Seems lots of things have been happening that have kept me away from here. First, the job has turned into work. I can remember a time, not really that long ago, when my job was really cool. I actually enjoyed going to work and doing my job – and I was good at it. Basically, I’m a tech writer for a telecom company. My main job was writing online documents for the users of our product. The docs are written using a proprietary (which means if I tell you what, I have to kill you – or take your stock options away) form of XML. The engineers change the rules and the subject of my docs on random and usually unannounced occasions which leads me (usually late on a Friday night) to have to figure out what they’ve done and how to change what I’ve done in the past to work with what they’ve given me in the future. However, as much as I gripe about it here, it’s been a blast and really enjoyable to have to figure out how things work and how to make the format do what I want it to do and not what the engineers have wanted it to do.

Over the last year or so, however, things have changed. I now spend most of my time writing internal documents about procedures I’m not familiar with and can’t do anything to determine how they work. Besides that I’m supposed to describe how to use software I can’t get on operating systems they won’t let me have to do things I can’t try to do. And of course when I do do it, it needs to be reviewed and disapproved and then held in a supervisory limbo of indecision. On top of that, the whole company has changed – for the worse I think, but what do I know. It’s gone through a bankruptcy (haven’t all telcoms done that?) and reorganization (seems like it happens quarterly) and in my case I’ve gone through three radically different supervisors in the last few months. And comments on them, I’ll keep to myself for now. The end result of all this is that it’s work now. I’m being boxed into this tight little corporate box with oodles of arbitrary rules and regulations and it’s really obviously no fun anymore.

But why should I bitch I guess. At least I have a job and get paid fairly well. That’s more than a lot of folks can claim. Basically, I just got to suck it up and do my nine daily hours (one for lunch) of Dilbertian cubicle hell and keep my sanity until another weekend appears on the horizon. Monday through Friday, I’ll pop my depression and high blood pressure pills, suck down generic alka-seltzers and herbal tea, toss and turn in bed and hope I keep my sanity until Saturday morning.

2fers: Dilbert and Alka-Seltzer

Commercials

Well, the Super Bowl is finished. I have it on tape, but I guess New England won it with 9 seconds to go. And why New England by the way -- couldn't they find a state that would have them?

Anyway, about commercials. I watched a show the night before that had the supposedly 10 best Super Bowl commercials, then the top 3 and finally the top one. I agree that the Clydesdales playing football is pretty cool, but the third best commercial in Super Bowl history - I don't think so. I'll pretty much agree with Mean Joe Green taking first -- especially out of the odd ten they chose. I gotta think that overall though, Budweiser has had the best quality of commercials.

By the way, I taped this show too and watched it later. I can't help but feeling odd when watching a television show about commercials, fast-forwarding through the commercials to get to the commercials. I haven't watched much of this Super Bowl yet, so can't say much about the commercials. A couple of them struck me as being cool. The Ford GT commercial that the little disclaimer at the bottom, "Clearly a professional driver on a closed course." Isn't it sad, that a company has to put something like that on a commercial? Otherwise some idiot will try it on I-94 and blame Ford for showing them it was OK - sheesh.

The other memorable commercial was I think for Nextel. When they put Dale Earnhart Jr. in on a running play. Verizon should have hired Caterpillar as a linebacker. And one commercial I remember, although I'm not sure it was in the game or not was guys opening beer bottles with various parts of their anatomy before being put to shame by a girl opening a bottle with her - navel - year, like everyone was thinking navel down there.

And how many think Janet Jackson's plop out was unplanned??

2fers: Patriots and Budweiser