Christmas Music!

Ok, we've all heard them -- and if you claim you haven't, you're lying -- those pesky holiday songs that are played constantly from Thanksgiving until Christmas.

The problem is I only like them when it's NOT the holiday season for some reason. I think it's more because they're forced on ya. I decided this today when I was working and someone had their speakers turned up to the point where I can BARELY hear it and I was annoyed. Yet I had no problems turning on Pandora to a holiday station and I'm happy.

But, I digress. That's not the reason for this post. I'm confused about a few songs.

First, we'll talk about "Winter Wonderland." The song goes:

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown

He'll say: Are you married?
We'll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you're in town

Now, if you read a little into that, apparently the singer wants Parson Brown to do things that a married person would normally do. Follow my logic here -- one has sexual relations with their marital partner, so we'll jump to the conclusion that the song is talking about extra-marital sex!

Then there's "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Follow these lyrics:

There'll be parties for hosting
Marshmallows for toasting
And caroling out in the snow
There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago

Now, where are these "scary ghost stories"? That is VERY Halloweenish! Now, I understand "A Christmas Carol" has ghosts in it, but it's not particularly "scary" -- at least as long as you're not a Scrooge. But, it also is plural... so that infers MORE than just that one. *shrug*

What Would Jesus Do?

OK, Jesus Chicken people are out of Peppermint Chocolate Chip milkshake mix. I was distraught. I stared blankly at cute dude behind the counter.

I said, "In times like this, I have to think, what would Jesus do? -- I know, he'd turn the chocolate mix into Peppermint Chocolate Chip mix like he did with water and wine... now, you go back there and do that!"

Cute dude behind the counter wasn't particularly amused.

"I'm sorry, she died in a freak blender accident."

In case I haven't informed my vast three readers (or any future people who may venture across this blog), I'm gay.

Yes, I have just officially come out of the closet! Or something like that.

Now, we'll get to gay marriage. I can't decide which direction I am on the fence regarding this. On one hand, I love the concept and how it could help things in the gay community be more "stable" -- but then there's the idea that some sugar daddy is going to have to pay gay alimony when his twink boy leaves him. That's going to cause a bigger stir.

Anyway, that "marriage" conversation leads into a conversation I got to have yesterday -- not once, but TWICE!

Caller: "Is there a Mrs. ?"
Me: "I'm sorry, no. *Sniffle* She died last month in a freak blender accident. I can't drink margaritas without breaking down anymore."

Now, the caller -- whether they be a salesperson, telemarketer, or whathaveyou -- naturally goes "Oh, I'm sorry." Then you can hear them clicking back and forth wondering "Is he for real? I really want to know how someone could have died in a freak blender accident!" And, of course, they cannot ask for fear of being insensitive.

At dinner, I got a fortune cookie that said something like "Your sense of humor was greatly appreciated today." -- I found great humor in that one!

Blah Blah Black Friday

It's the thrill of the fight, rising up to the challenge of our rival, and the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night, and he's watching us all with the, Eye of the Tiger...

Oh wait, not quite in the Rocky kinda way, but Black Friday is a huge adventure for die-hards.

That is, when there's good sales.

Like a lot of people on the Internets, I wasn't very impressed with this year's sales. But, like any avid Black Friday shopper, I went investigating things out there. Because, obviously, Black Friday is shopping for ME ME ME!

Since my current laptop has some problems with it, my first inkling was that I wanted to buy one of the laptops from Bestus Buyus. They had one for 379, an upgraded model for 479, and a cheaper model with a printer for 350. All appearing decent prices for laptops... Until I did further research... I found these models were just as cheaply made as my current laptop. Not to say it's a bad laptop, but if I'm going to spend that money, I want to have something that may last more than a year or two. I'm seriously lucky I got three years out of my current laptop. So I went around further. I found this pretty cool Acer laptop for 499. Then I had $20 in Best Buy RewardZone certificates, making my final price 479. Same price for the "upgraded" laptop. Except, it wasn't particularly upgraded with memory -- but it DOES have a BluRay player within it! Something all the other lappys didn't have!

Now, forgive me while I go out on a tangent here. The laptop prices didn't sound impressive. Then I realized the deals of $200 laptops came from an AOL instant rebate they gave if you signed up for a year agreement. AOL has since gone free, so they can't quite convince people to pay for their service to give said rebates. And the probability of the high-speed internet providors giving out these discounts is probably minimal -- especially because people probably use said providors and providors aren't interested in giving rebates to keep customers.

Thursday was spent at my friend Dave's for Turkey Day. I had a lot of fun. And I got to go through the physical sale paper ads. Yes, they've all been leaked on the Internets for a while, but there's nothing like the physical looking at the papers to compare. I didn't find a thing.

But, Amazon.com has (had?) Nintendo DS packages for $5 more than just the base console. Brain Age and Mario. I ordered the Brain Age version, along with some BluRays on sale. Completing most of my Black Friday shopping... without staying out all night in the cold.

Then I saw a Sony Home Theater Receiver that I thought I wanted to get. Bestus Buyus for $199. Except I did a little research and found it on Sony Online for the same price.

I understand the concept behind Black Friday doorbuster ads. They're to get customers into the stores and make them buy other things because they stood in line all night and they don't want to have a fruitless endeavor. Retailers get more money in because people go in for one thing, end up buying something else, see something else they want and buy that, too! A win for (almost) everybody.

I don't know what kind of help this years ads are doing for sales yet. I think they sucked, but my opinion of what I want is different from everyone else's ideas. I got my deals online, and saved my buttkus from greuling Black Friday lines. I didn't even go by and see what kind of lines were out there.

I know people went out to battle for things they want for Christmas gifts. I am proud of them. But, as I said before, I'm dissapointed in the sales this year. I think retailers need to start beefing up their ads.

So, what's my advice? Don't assume what's in a Black Friday ad is the cheapest you can get. Shop around still. Spend a couple more dollars and you'll probably get something a LOT better and will last longer.

How hard can it be?

Famous last words, right?

At some point during my MA escapade (quite possibly the day I returned since the awesome person who watched my house & Bradley while I was gone didn't know anything bout it), my garage door opener decided to stop working. So, I went to the local Sears to buy a new one. I was suggested to buy a Craftsman Belt Opener because they're quiet.

I got to the local Sears and there are two Craftsman belt models -- the more expensive one was on sale for the same price as the cheap one. The only difference I was able to quickly identify was battery backup. Knowing the number of times in the past two years and change I've been stuck outside of my garage because of power outages, I decided I wanted this option. Lo and behold, it's not in stock, so the sales associate helps me locate one in the area.

$220 plus tax later, I have one found for me on the other side of Atlanta. When asked if I wanted it "professionally installed for $110", I said "nnaa -- how hard can it be?" Besides, I knew I wouldn't have been able to get it installed until Saturday and that was too long for me to wait.

Sunday evening I took down the broken opener. What a pain in the butt that was. It was late, so I wasn't about to try to install it.

My week was full of long days of trying to find new clothes for the new job, checking in on cats, and just plain old getting into the hang of things of getting up early, so I didn't get to install it during the week. But manually opening and closing the door was definitely getting old.

Saturday comes and I decide it's definitely time to get this taken care of.

I begin this daunting task at 11am. I laid the parts out and began assembly. "This doesn't seem too hard, although the instructions are poorly designed," I said. Six and a half hours later, I was done. Kinda.

In all fairness, I think my ghost has been messing with me. Some of my tools randomly vanished, so I spent time searching for them. Add into that the fact the brackets for those sensor thinggies that reverse the door if a small child decides to walk under it are too short, so I need to get some extender thinggies. So, right now I have the most unsafest garage door opener in the neighborhood because the two sensors are taped to the ceiling pointing at each other. But it's nice and quiet! Although, I can't store my ID badge for The Company up behind my remote clip. It's blocking the signal or something, apparently.

Oh well, hopefuly I'll update y'all when it's safe again!

I've been bad...

So, I've been informed by some of my vast readership (yes, all three of you) that I've been neglecting you and not updating things.

I'd love to go back over the past two weeks, but the majority of it is summed up in my previous post about heart attacks. My visit to MA was fun, and I almost missed being up there until it decided to start getting cold. It was great seeing friends and family, but I'm totally glad to be back in Atlanta.

I started the new job on Monday. Henceforth, "The Company" will now reference as this new job. I haven't decided if I'm going to like it or not yet. The first couple weeks are always the worst. You're out there learning the stuff you're going to be doing because every company is different. The basic skills are always there, but each company has its own intricacies that cause the learning curve. Thursday was bad because I accidentally deleted some data. I clicked "OK" a little too fast, but in almost fairness, I was following the direction of what my manager was wanting to do. But he misstated something as we were determining what to clear in the system. Before he had a chance to re-look at the selection, I clicked OK. I'm definitely not used to having Production access yet, but I will get in the proper mindset soon.

Right now, I'm fearful of trying to blog from work since I don't know what's being watched. Until I get more comfortable there, you may have to live with spurts of blogs instead of a more constant flow.

How to piss off a GPS

So, yeah, I'm in MA as we all know right now. I leave Saturday.

Now, my experience with Boston proper has always been as a pedestrian, with the exception of my last trip where I flew in and got lost trying to get out of airsport to get to Western Mass. Since I knew I was going to travel inside Boston and knew that I would want to drive around Western Mass with the option of getting lost and needing to find my way home, I bought a GPS prior to my trip. It's worked mostly well, with the exception of Boston having several roads intersect and the GPS getting confused as to whether to turn left or right. Later I found out that 3D mode is better for that so you can really see what's going on where you need to go, but I digress.

I was in the South End visiting a former professor of mine. We talked for a few hours, went out to dinner, talked a little more, then I had to leave to head back to NH to stay with friends.

My GPS told me to go one way (after it took about 2 minutes to calculate the route) and he told me to go another. I decided to take his directions since it kept me off Storrow Drive. As soon as I started on his route, I hear "Recalculating route. Recalculating route. Recalculating route." All while I was on the same road and not crossing over anything.

Now, I've heard GPSs get mad when you don't follow their directions. I've even heard one tell you to make "the next legal U-turn". But NEVER have I heard one have to do three different recalculations in a row without crossing over or missing any turns.

I guess that's one of the cool things about the midst of Boston!