FourBux

My free eye exam, courtesy of the Arizona Highway Patrol

Okay, although what I’m about to tell you may sound like I got busted and am just sore about it, but I can assure you, that’s not it at all. I’m more than happy to have those who actually commit crimes be punished. I’d be the first in line to submit to the authorities too, if I thought I was in the wrong. Well, maybe not first, but I’d definitely be in the vicinity of the first part of the line.

A little back-story: I have this strange tendency to perspire when I consume food or beverages. I don’t know what it is or why it happens, but it’s probably something to do with my metabolism or not drinking enough water. I haven’t had a chance to look it up yet, but it’s always easy to tell if I’ve had coffee, or wine, or onion rings, etc. I like my wife’s garlic dishes, but only if I’m working in the garage for the next few hours.

I’m also drawing courage to relay this from fellow blogger Laurie Kendrick, who recently posted a story about the joys of the diet drug Xenical which will make you laugh, probably make you squeamish, and also drive home the point to never, under any circumstances, buy a used car in Texas. If it were I in that story, let’s just say you’d never hear about it. Unless it happened to my famous nameless friend “I know a guy,” in which case you’d get every juicy morsel, pun intended. I guess we don’t have to just share the clean and shiny parts of our lives on these things, right?
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How to tell if you need more sleep - leading by example

I already know I don’t get as much sleep as I’d like, but I’m beginning to think that I don’t get as much sleep as my body needs. Here’s a slice from my own life that can help you gauge your own level of deprivation. Enjoy.

Morning routine

1. After snoozing the clock for a half hour, roll out of bed and stumble into the shower.
2. You can’t get the shampoo to rinse out of your hair, then realize it isn’t shampoo, but body wash. Pick up the same bottle of incorrect product and repeat.
3. Lather entire body with conditioner. Feel greasy for the entire day.
4. On way out the door, grab every electronic device you can carry, a banana and the bottle of eye drops.
5. Leave banana on trunk of car. Run over it backing out of the driveway.
6. Once on the road, realize you picked up a bottle of super glue instead of eye drops. Shudder.
7. The first words you say each day are “Venti coffee – black” in that just-woke-up dry throat voice. You’re speaking not to a person, but to a speaker box in a parking lot.

At Work

1. Drink coffee by the gallon with no effect. Finally realize the Post-it note on the coffee machine states it’s decaffeinated. Curse self for not being able to find the damn eye drops.
2. Do the falling-asleep head jerk all through staff meeting.
3. Realize mid morning that although your socks do match in tonal value, i.e., are both dark, they are, in fact, different colors altogether. Finally figure out what the wise cracks were about in staff meeting.
4. Spend more time at the urinal than at your desk due to the volume of liquid consumed thus far.
5. Go to lunch early because you ran over your morning snack.
6. On the way back from lunch stop and get a double cappuccino, just for good measure.
7. Work like a twitching crazy person through the afternoon, making up for the psuedo-coma in which you spent the morning.
8. Caffeine high ends at 3:30 and you crash. Prop yourself up in front of computer to give the illusion of productivity.
9. Find yourself falling asleep in traffic on the way home. Slap yourself in the face to wake up, much to the amusement of those in the cars around you.

Evening

1. Get home and pull into the garage. Drive into the storage shelves. Again.
2. Hose flattened and sun-baked banana off driveway.
3. Plop down in front TV, kick off shoes and open the laptop – catch up on all the online reading from the day and return email until you fall asleep on the couch or your battery goes dead.
4. Wake up to a stream of drool or beeping warnings from the computer, drag yourself into the home office, plug in the laptop, cell phone, Bluetooth ear bud, iPod, wireless mouse and Palm Pilot so you can actually use the items the next day.
5. In an effort to make sure everything matches, set clothes out for next day, get cleaned up and fall into bed.

Four hours later, get up, rinse and repeat.

Why I hate E-bay, a huge steaming rant

I have made a grand total of 13 transactions on the ‘Bay, but have been a member for about five years. I have a sparkling 100% feedback rating. Though mentally I equate it to a worldwide swap meet, I take it seriously. There are people for whom online sales are their only source of income, and I don’t begrudge them that fact. I treat people in their online personas much as I would in a traditional brick and mortar store, with dignity and common courtesy.

There are those out there too with the exact opposite mentality – their goal is to swindle, steal from and otherwise malign the general deal-seeking community. I can also appreciate their position. Criminals are criminals. It’s easier to cheat someone out of their money than to earn your own, and then you have to deal with taxes, and online cheating ensures that at least nobody can tell what you look like. That’s why when I buy, say, an $800 bundle of “gay-rhun-teeed lee-git-a-met” design software, I only partially expect to be able to install and, dare I say, use said software. Twice over the course of my extensive Ebay résumé have my past employer or I been suckered into purchasing bootleg software, not because we’re particularly dense, but because we were intentionally deceived. Caveat emptor, I guess. A Palm Pilot I purchased was missing a key piece of functionality – the ability to connect to a computer – and the software disk was bootleg and didn’t work. The U2 Special Edition iPod had that strange rattle when you turned it slowly…suggesting that at any moment your songs were going to pour out all over the ground like so many grains of sand and blow away.
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It’s 2007. Shouldn’t my car be flying by now?

Call me naïve. Call me unrealistic. But in this day of gas crises and oil prices and wars over fossil fuels, wouldn’t you think somebody could have developed a better car by now? Hybrids are nice, but when the car costs more than 30% more than a traditional car, it’s a tough pill to swallow.

I just paid another $31.00 to fill up my tank at the local QuickTrip. I filled it up last Thursday, too, and have to fill it twice a week on average. So, in a period of three and a half days, I blow through a substance that arguably took millions of years (depending on your school of thought) to create, not to mention a couple hundred bucks a month. And we all do it. Even mass transit still uses gasoline, unless it’s an electric train for instance, but where does the electricity come from? Most likely, it comes from burning coal. Hydro-electric power isn’t readily available yet, and is still cost-prohibitive for most areas. Not everyone is on board yet with nuclear power, but it seems to be the most viable, sustainable option. Mr. Fusion, where are you?
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I shall call her “Spresso”

Came up with this concept while sitting in a staff meeting, and just had to flesh her out.

I give the ‘Bucks people about two days before they show up at my door.

Cheers.

Where everybody knows your name. . .

So, not too long ago, the wife and I were back in our small hometown. While there, as a general rule, we try to avoid any type of retail shopping in said town, only because we can’t get out of any given store there without running into someone we know. We go back to visit family, and bolt immediately for the city limits. Even stopping long enough for gas is taking the chance we’ll run into someone from high school. My wife has it worse than I do, only because she looks like she did in school. I, thankfully, look like I ate the person I was in high school.

We stopped to run into Target, and I dropped her off at the door, and then went to park the car. Who says chivalry is dead? That, and I don’t want to have to spend any more time than absolutely necessary outside the safety of the tinted windows. You, Wifey, are on your own.

When I finally sauntered inside, I decided that I wanted some of that Target brand popcorn that they sell. Hot, salty goodness, freshly made six hours ago. And I’d still be within ten feet of the door if a reunion erupted.

I approached the clerk at the snack counter, and said hi. The high school girl looked up from the tangled receipt machine she was working with and gasp. Her eyes bulged, her mouth hung open, staring silently.

Confused, of course, I slowly turn around and glance over my shoulder to see what or who she was staring at. Nobody back there. Hmm. Not a good sign. Perhaps she’s having an allergic reaction? Benadryl, to the cafe! Stat!

As I turn back around and meet her gaze, she sighs “We never get famous people in here!” I quickly look over my other shoulder to see if Justin Timberlake or somebody else had come in and was standing behind me. Nope. Still just me, wondering who in the world does she think she’s talking to?

Now, the thought crossed my mind to ask her, you know, who she thought I was, but it’s kind of hard to keep the charade going after that question. And I really wanted to see if I could score some free popcorn and a bottle of water. I hear celebs don’t have to pay for anything, and I’d really like a piece of that action.

I ordered a popcorn and water, and somehow she managed to serve up a bag of the fresh stuff and water without ever taking her eyes off me. She charged me for them, too, so kudos to her for not being swept up in the (albeit misdirected) fame.

I still have no idea who she thought I was.