Mobile Tombstones

I've noticed a recent alarming trend that really bothers me. It's these car window decals that say something like:

Cruisin' in Memory of Joe Smith
2/1/74 - 9/25/04

Is this not the stupidest thing ever? This is worse than the Calvin stickers or the fake bullet holes that are prevalent in my area. I can't imagine anything more tacky. Even "Baby on Board" didn't bother me as much as this.

You know what else bothers me, it's the people who drive around with their parking lights on. If you're going to go that far, why not go all the way? To me it's either full lights or no lights. The middle parking light setting doesn't make sense to me. What do these people think? "Ahh, it's dark, but not that dark, I think I'll just go with the parking lights for now." They are called parking lights for a reason you know.

Popcorn Popper

My wife asked for and received a popcorn popper for Christmas from her mother. My personal feelings are that popcorn poppers have become obsolete for a reason - microwave popcorn is easier to make, easier to clean up and doesn't take up nearly as much space as this big popper. Frankly I think the $50 could have been better spent better but she doesn't want to here it. I suppose this will just take up space next to the bread maker that we've used twice in four years.

#1 A-hole (part 2)

Yesterday I got together with my in-laws where we exchanged our Christmas presents. Prior to arrival, I told my wife that someone would make a comment about how hard it was to get that golf club and I figured it would be my future sister-in-law. So as they passed over the box and I pulled out the club I did my very best to act like I didn't know it was coming. I also raved about how great a gift it was and how I couldn't wait to use it and how it matched up with my existing clubs. That last part was the opening they were waiting for. Of course my future sister-in-law had to remark that it was good it matched because they actually bought two clubs and had to sell the other one. Again I played stupid but it doesn't take a genius to read between the lines. I'm an A-hole for being so specific about the gift I wanted.

"Hey Merry Christmas, here's that gift you really wanted and while I'm at it, how about a big bowl of guilt thrown in with it."

Of earrings and infants

Yesterday I saw my six month old niece who had recently had her ears pierced. Am I alone in thinking that piercing the ears of an infant is about as wrong as wrong can get? #1 - it is cruel, #2 - it doesn't give the girl the opportunity to decide for herself if she even wants pierced ears, #3 - it looks stupid on babies. This formerly cute baby just looks ridiculous with these little gold earrings. Frankly I think it should be illegal for anyone under the age of 10 to have their ears pierced and I can't think of many reasons to convince me otherwise.

Small or Large

Last night my wife and I went out to dinner. As we were waiting for some friends, we sat at the bar and ordered two sodas. The bartender poured up the two sodas and then moved on to another customer. While perusing the menu I noticed that the sodas came in a small or a large size. I assumed we got the small because I figured it would be presumptuous of the bartender to assume we wanted the large. After a few seconds we noticed that our friends were already sitting at a table. Since the bartender wasn't around, I threw down $4 which covered the two $1.60 sodas plus a tip. During dinner my wife got a refill on her soda and when it came back I noticed it was in a smaller glass. I started to get worried that I may have shortchanged the bartender because he gave us large sodas instead of small. At the end I figured I was still safe but I was a little miffed that the bartender would automatically give us a large without asking first. I would assume that if someone ordered a soda, you would give them the regular size which in this case probably was the small.

The other thing that didn't make sense is they had two different prices for refills based off of whether you had a small or a large soda. Why not just have one size of soda with one price for refills - or go free refills as many establishments have?

TomKat

I'm really starting to get tired of the seeming necessity to combine every celebrity couples names into a singular catchy name. You know: Bennifer, TomKat, Vaughniston etc. I'd be surprised if at this point there isn't a single person who doesn't find this practice to be annoying.

Mandatory Gift Giving

This morning our company VP walked in and asked if we would like to chip in some money to get a Christmas gift certificate for our secretary. Frankly I didn't see why we needed to single out the secretary for a gift. She has the easiest job of anyone in the office. She is already receiving a year end bonus and she just asked for and received a $3500 no interest lone from the company. Of course I'm relatively new so I didn't mention my misgivings. I'm thinking to myself, "$5-$10 - it isn't that big a deal." Then one of my office mates pulls out a $20 and suddenly that is the standard amount to give. So this secretary, who puts in less than 8 hours/day, is receiving a holiday bonus and a no interest lone is getting another $100 thrown in on top of everything.

Here is an update on the golf club situation. My brother-in-law bid again on the correct club and won it so now he has two clubs. He wants to sell the first club on ebay (at a big loss I would expect). The second club he paid way too much for. The end result is my wife is chipping in to help pay for the club I will be receiving. She won't tell me how much but I'd guess $30-$40. I feel guilty about the whole thing even though I specifically told her to tell him not to bid on the 2nd club. I'm beginning to understand the stress that everyone talks about during the holiday season.

12:30

I was standing behind two women the other day at the grocery store. They were talking about getting together later and one woman said: "Why don't we meet up at noon-thirty." "Okay, I'll see you at noon-thirty." I've never heard 12:30 referred to as noon-thirty before but for some reason I found it very annoying.

How about a little effort Wendy's

With so many fast food offerings out there nowadays couldn't Wendy's improve their dessert menu? Your choice is pretty much just a chocolate Frosty. How could a place have a wide variety of hamburgers but only one dessert choice - and let's be honest, the Frosty is getting pretty damn tired. I honestly can't see any reason why they wouldn't want to expand their dessert offerings.

Professional Drivers

One thing I can't stand in car commercials is the little disclaimer that this is a "professional driver on a closed course." Half the time they aren't even driving recklessly or anything. You known they've gotten out of hand when they use that disclaimer for a commercial showing a car driving about 70mph across a dry lake bed. C'mon, professional driver? A blind man could do that. The incessant fear of litigation in this country has gotten so out of hand.

The other thing I can't stand is the black and yellow warning labels permanently attached to the underside of every visor of every new car that basically tells you that an airbag could kill an infant. Let's say you don't have any children and you just spent $70,000 on a new Jaguar. Shouldn't you be able to remove a warning label that does not pertain to you at all?

Colin and Ashlee

Both Colin Farrell and Ashlee Simpson were treated for exhaustion this week. How exactly do you treat someone for exhaustion and why would it require hospitalization? I would think the prescription would be simple; sleep an extra couple hours and do nothing but relax for a week or so.

I suppose it annoys me that we the public are played off as being so stupid. It's as if I really believe Colin Farrell is addicted to "prescription painkillers." If he's addicted to anything, it's the legitimate hardcore drugs but of course the public would be less forgiving of that than treatment for alcohol abuse (of which Colin is celebrated for) or painkillers which is something that comes out of legitimate medicine.

#1 A-hole

Ever since the Christmas of the sweater vest and porcelain lighthouse, I've have very detailed lists of what I would like to receive for Christmas. What sets me apart is that I actually go through the trouble of researching the best place to buy the items off the list and include internet coupons whenever possible. The system should be foolproof - or at least it was until this year.

For the life of me, I had the hardest time coming up with things to ask for so I made a spreadsheet of everyone I expected to receive presents from and the approximate amount of money they would spend. I then made a list of every possible thing I might want and shuffled each item around to match up with the expected spending. Everything pretty much fell into place until I got to my mother-in-law and my brother-in-law. I figured they'd spend in the $25-$30 range and despite my best efforts I couldn't find anything to fit into that category and after several days of wracking my mind I finally came up with the perfect item:

A TaylorMade RAC 60 degree lob wedge - satin finish.

This one turned out to be a little more complicated than most things on my list. First off, I'd have to make sure that my mother-in-law and brother-in-law would be willing to chip in together on an item. Then I'd have to make sure that my brother-in-law would be willing to use his ebay account to bid on one given that the store bought price of the club is out of reach at a price of around $110. Thirdly, I'd have to coordinate all this through my wife since it's better for my mother-in-law's psyche to think that this is actually a surprise.

After some heavy negotiating, it was agreed that they would indeed by the club and my brother-in-law would use his ebay account to bid on one. To prevent any confusion, I sent an email (via my wife's email account) explaining how to go about getting this club:

Ebay.com.
Search term is: RAC satin 60 new
There is a seller called Proshop Warehouse who always has a bunch for sale. I would recommend buying from him.
This club generally sells for about $50-$55.

Seems pretty idiot proof to me. On top of that I even tracked down a Paypal coupon where they could get 10% off the purchase. At the end of the day, the only thing he got right was the coupon.

He started out fine bidding on the right club (though from a different seller) but got outbid. After a day of monitoring ebay, I noticed he hadn't bid on any more clubs even though proshop had plenty for sale. I then actually attached a specific auction saying "bid on this one." The next day I saw that the auction closed with a very good selling price of $49 but it wasn't to my brother-in-law. Now I was getting concerned so I asked my wife to call him to find out what was going on. He told her he was the high bidder on a current auction. I checked on ebay but couldn't find what he was bidding on. It turns out that once he lost the first auction, he quickly bid on a second auction but did not use the search terms I required and therefore bid on a club without the satin finish. His high bid was $65 - a full $10 more than I recommended and it was from a different seller who charged a ridiculously high shipping charge.

So after all my effort he bid on the wrong club, from the wrong seller and bid the wrong price. Of course at that price he won the auction. I told my wife I don't know how anyone could screw up something so idiot proof. As a result of that I received the title of #1 A-hole (for the second time in a week no less). If that's what I am, so be it, but I think I have the right to be a little disappointed. Next year I should just ask for a gift certificate.