Friday, October 07, 2005

In which our hero vents a bit of that free floating hostility...

In which our hero vents a bit of that free floating hostility....

I'm gonna gripe. It's why I have a blog.

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Does a theater really need a discount club card? Honestly. I'm sick of these bullshit discount cards that every food store, drug store and media outlet is giving out to track your personal spending habits. And I say that as a manager of a store that utilizes these cards on a daiy basis--generally speaking, we in the retail biz hate those cards more than your average consumer, mostly because it's our job to ensure that you the customer have information that Big Brother can track on it, and we don't like getting shit from people who don't like having their info tracked.

I mean, it'd be different if I got any kind of info about you directly from your card. Hell, it wouldn't even have to be useful information. If I got a list of the favorite movie of everybody who used the cards, that'd be cool. Because I like lists of movies.

But I digress.

So this whole movie theater thing is the last straw.

I went to see Serenity the other day. I will not be bitching about that movie. I've decided that I liked it very much. Was it a great movie? No. But it was very good for what it tried to do. Jayne is cool. I'm glad Kaylee did not die.

But anyway, being that I live out in the boondocks, I have to drive an hour if I want to hit a decent movie theater. Gas costing what it does, I usually gotta combine two or three things into one trip to justify seeing a movie. Well, Serenity started at 1. One of my chores? New shoes. I head to the New Balance store, by my size 14 4E banana boats, and drive back to the theater. And along the way, I manage to get caught by every traffic light along the way. Honestly, I think they built a few lights special for the cause of stopping me on my way into the see the movie.

I get back to the movie theater at 1:05. I figure I'm just missing previews. I have to wait in line behind the person who wants to know what each movie is about. And then I get to the kiosk, and the girl wants to know if I want to buy a Regal Theater Club Card.

"No," I say.

In quotes and shit.

"No," I say, and she goes to tell me what it's good for.

"The movie's starting at 1," I say.

But the spiel continues. I get stuff, and free movies and junk.

"No," I say.

And that "no" confuses her, apparently, because she tries to charge me for two tickets. And there's confusion because we work with "computers" at Regal Theaters. I get into the theater halfway through the trailer for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In the end, I probably didn't miss anything but the 17 or so commercials they seem to put in front of movies, nowadays. So I should bitch too much.

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I hate those commercials in front of movies. I have nothing new to say on the subject. It's just wrong to pay 10 bucks, and then have to sit through five or six commercials for M&M's or Coke. And it's not even a conundrum for me, because I'm not really one of those guys who loves movie trailers. I can take them or leave them. Most of them give up too many plot points for movies, or give away all the good jokes.

But anyway. Hate the commercials. Whoever started that shit should be dealt with, Suge Knight style.

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When did we stop putting partitions up at the bank to show where the lines stop and start?

I go to the bank today for work, and I get in the line marked "Commercial Accounts." Because I'm cool like that. In doing so, I get behind the couple of people standing directly in front of the window.

"Ahem," a lady says. Exactly those syllables. "The line's back here."

She points behind her.

"No," I say. "The line's here." And I point along the imaginary straight line that runs from the window to, say, me.

I should point out that while I am standing facing directly toward the window, right behind a couple of people who are doing the same, and I am about five or six feet from the window myself, this lady is standing to my right and behind me, some six or seven feet. Meaning, all told, she's something like 12 feet from the window, and 8 feet or more from the person I got behind. In fact, I had walked past her when getting into the line, thinking she was in line for the other open window.

I invite her to get in front of me, and she takes the invitation, but not without a roll of the eyes.

I spent the rest of the time at the bank coming up with outlandish and wonderful scenarios that involve some manner of comeuppance that does not involve prison time for yours, truly.

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Folks, while I'm on the subject of the bank. My bank, and my work's bank and most banks I've been in for a few years now have big signs saying that they will not cash checks unless you have the funds to match it in your account. This is standard policy at most banks. Yelling loudly does not change bank policy.

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Boy, those Red Sox sure reminded me of the '05 Cubs, today. Except for that whole actually "making the playoffs."

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It's been a while since blogger ate my post. And really, it wasn't blogger that ate my post. Internet Explorer bombed out while I was writing up a second in a sporadic series of posts on Dining in Athens, Tennessee late last night. I tried to save the text to paste into another word processing program, but it was to no avail. If only blogger had a good auto-save function. For doofuses like me.

And that piece was comic gold. Comic. Gold.

I mean, how can a critical piece on "Mexi-Wing" not be great?

But the computer ate it.

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This is not a gripe so much as an observation:

Sometimes, I wish I weren't so much a doofus.

Then I realize just how much shit it gets me out of.

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Rainy fall day. Tin roof. Big giant hickory trees bearing nuts all around the house. It's not a restful situation, to constantly have hickory nuts dropped with the sound of a hammer hitting tin every ten or fifteen minutes....

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What is this shit with cats and their claws? Honestly? When did this shit start?

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I really got pissed off at Chris Berman, Mike Piazza and Rick Sutcliffe in the eighth inning of tonight's White Sox/Red Sox playoff game. I mean, I don't like Berman or Sutcliffe as announcers to start with. But they were fucking eulogizing the Red Sox in the eight inning, with the Red Sox still six outs away from beind dead and buried.

Sure, the BoSox when out with more of a whimper than a bang, but it's not up to Berman or Piazza, and it's especially not up to Rick Sutcliffe, to go around deciding when baseball games are over.

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That's all I got for now. Pretty shitty gripes, if you asked me. Makes me feel kinda silly for even bitching. Maybe that's why I did it.

Or maybe there are South American Terrorists holding my family hostage, saying I must blog, or they'll kill my family.....

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