No Rant Just Respects To Poco

I lost a dear old friend today. Poco, my buddy for 19 years passed away. Now before you say he was just a stupid Cockatiel get over it, let me tell you how hard that is to do. It doesn't matter what kind of pet you have, after 19 years, it IS part of the family. Poco had a personality, loved to sit & watch TV with me and he knew his name. Whenever I'd call his name he'd come running (ok waddle) over the carpet, climb up my leg and settle into his favorite perch - my shoulder. I'm gonna miss that the most.

So allow me to silently reflect on days spent with my buddy and mourn his loss.

Rest in Peace, Poco, and know that these tears mean I miss you already.

Vitamins

Do vitamins really do anything? I realize it's a multi-billion dollar industry but is there any PROOF that these pills do anything but shrink your wallet. Skeptic? Me? Nope. My Grandmother swore by the things. She had a routine, that as a kid, I'd love to watch. She would pull down the shoe box filled with bottles and pull her "stash" for the day; B complex, Cod Liver, Zinc, etc. She lived to be 100 years old! That should say something. My question is, does anyone have a way to prove that any combination of pills really work. Do we have the placebo effect? I take a multivitamin because it will make me have more energy and "feel" more healthy. Do I truly get more energy or do I just trick myself into it because I take the vitamin.

Judging from my wife's comments about laying around all weekend watching sports on TV, maybe I set the "energy" bar a bit high. OR maybe I just don't feel like doing anything on the weekend. Yeah, that must be it. I need to store my energy for the work week. Imagine how much energy I must store up on a three day weekend.

The Dark Side

What's with the current teen trend for the colors black and pink? My 15-year old son comes home and announces he'd like to paint his room! I was totally amazed that he would even be open to painting his swamp.

When I asked what color he wanted, the other shoe slapped me in the face. BLACK!!! Hold on, Bubba! No black - you already sit in the dark. His second choice? PINK!!! OMG what grows in the dark he calls a room? We settled on light gray and VERY dark gray.

When I was a larvae, painting my room NEVER once crossed my mind. Of course, my Dad walled my room with knotty pine planks. Do you think he knew something?

Outlet this!

This weekend I was talked into going to the Outlet Mall for pre-Christmas shopping. Now I'm a typical male..pre Christmas to me is the night before.

Against my better judgement AND to keep peace in the house, I agreed to the trek. I call it a trek because it takes a little more than 2 hours to get there. That means no sleeping in. We simply MUST arrive when the stores open. (10am) There I was knee deep in humanity because Saturday is chartered bus day! The first hour was mildly pleasant but by 11am stores were getting "close". But like a good soldier, I carried on without complaint. By 4pm her feet hurt and my sanity was just about gone. So we called it quits. We had a nice relaxing diner then hit the road for the long drive home.

She says to me...well I wasn't all that impressed. I chimed in "yeah - who needs 7 stores full of housewares?" Our total money spent wasn't much more than $150. Heck, I spent almost as much in gas to get there! My question - why do people insist on traveling clear across state to save 10 cents on the dollar?

However - this question comes from a guy whose mother used to shop at two different grocery stores because ...well... one had Ketchup 10 cents cheaper.
AAAH... I miss my mother's logic... it was to laugh about.

Hold On Just A MINT

Who proclaimed mint as the flavor of choice for us. Mint Oreos? ONE is enough of that little experiMINT. Now, I can usually avoid the mint revolution but lately it's cropping up everywhere.

The final straw came last week when my dentist suggested this new toothpaste to keep my gums "happy". MINT flavored paste. Couldn't the marketers come up with new flavors for toothpaste. Tequila would be cool. (I'd brush 10 times a day!) Strawberry-Banana shouldn't be limited to yogurt.

Anyway - I said I would try the MINT toothpaste as a favor to my dentist. He smiled as he handed me my "free" sample of floss....MINT flavored, of course!

Iraqi Democracy

Well, as I see it, it didn't take the Iraqi people long to embrace true Democracy. They went to the polls to vote. As further proof... they already have voting irregularities to be looked into! Aaah - Democracy at its' best.

Proof U.S. IS GOING WACKO #1

Did you hear about the big fight between two Wal-Mart employees? It got so heated that one girl ended up with a stab wound to her stomach. You may wonder what could they have been fighting about to cause this kind of response. Apparently the fight was over soup. You read right, SOUP! They couldn't agree as to which one of them would have access to the microwave first! When was the last time you stabbed someone to use the microwave?! Proof positive that the United States is headed WACKO!

Dead End

Have you ever tried to download ringtones for your cell on a weekend? DON'T BOTHER! My son wanted a couple of music related rings for his new cell phone. So, being the responsible parent, I joined him in a Sunday afternoon romp through a plethora of good but mostly bad Casio renditions of current hits. We finally decided on two tones. Now I've done this before on my phone so don't think I'm a novice at this task. I follow along on the web page, dutifully put in his phone number (area code first) and order the two selected ringtones. He then sat patiently by his phone waiting for the message that his "new" tones were waiting for him. No such message arrived..for either one. Now I find my self calling the Customer Care line to get down to the bottom of our problem. (as we are instructed to do.) "You have reached our customer care line but we aren't open right now." "Please push 1 for automated help. Your call means a lot to us." OK - I drilled down through a dozen numbers, each one taking me further away from reality. Finally, download ringtone help push 7... "You have reached our customer care line but we aren't open right now." "Please push 1 for automated help. Your call means a lot to us."- DEAD END!

Oh, Just For Little 'Ol Me?

So a local chain "box" store has decided to separate the cosmetics/personal health care sections by a store length from groceries. When the manager was told by a customer, "ME", that the walk was a bit "out of the way" when attempting to complete my weekly shopping chores; I was told that research showed that this layout was more convenient for the shopper. They did it all for the shopper.

Don't do me any favors! Do you think that ALL of your visitors are uneducated. Just tell me the truth. That your top three sales sections are Food, Cosmetics and Electronics. By spacing them far away from each other, the shopper spends more time in your store. AND the research you quoted told you that the longer a person stays in your box, the more money will be dropped in! Now that's the truth.

So - to defy this store, you can find me there this Saturday. I plan on pushing my cart around the store for a full 8 hours... then politely putting the cart back where I got it from, buying absolutely nothing. I wonder how THAT will affect their research?

Bad Drivers Go Home!

I've decided that every state must have an option for bad drivers that are stopped. They can pay the fine OR they can move to my state. I'm guessing most choose option two!

This mornings annoyment involved darkness, morning drive traffic and a driver who insisted that the passing lane was OK for her rate of speed. (50mph) The problem was someone in the slow lane had already chosen that speed as his. So, 7 minutes of my 12 minute drive should have included music and baton twirlers because we were ALL in a freakin' parade. Between slow and slower no one could go above 50 in a 70 zone!

I was sooo stressed out by the time I arrived at work, I can't remember if I waved to the guard at the gate or flipped him off. I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning.

Get over it!

Here's one that gets the ole Rooster crowing. A school is putting its old sports jerseys up for sale on Ebay. Why? Because the name of their team was the Indians. Wouldn't you know it offended someone. So now they are going by the name "Bengals". Hold On! Aren't Bengals an endangered species. You'd best be changing your name again. Bengals offends me. You are promoting the killing of Bengal tigers!! You'd better pick something safe in this country. Wouldn't want to offend anyone. How about the Goldenrods - NOPE, hayfever victims would be waving their little white hankies in your face. How about the Meatheads - NOPE, Archie Bunker fans would come out of the woodwork.

I've got it! Let's just play it safe from now on and name our teams after former Presidents! The Clintons, The Bushes, The Kennedys, The Nixons, etc. How much safer can you be. After all this is still America...isn't it. This just in, America evidently offends terrorists... well here we go again!

15 is half way to 30!

So - there he sat all fifteenish across from the ever aging Mom & Dad. It used to be pizza at Chuck E. Cheese for his birthday. Now he demands a T-bone at Logan's Roadhouse. I suppose we should feel lucky he didn't go for the Porterhouse. That would have cost even more!

Why do we put such effort into birthdays anyway? They aren't THAT special. Everyone has one. Funny, in your first 21 years, it's some giant event that everyone needs to be a part of. Then you turn 30 and birthdays fall out of favor. (Especially if you are of the female persuasion.) The suddenly you hit 70 and everyone starts making a big deal over your birthday again. Like "Hey, you old coot, you made it another year!" Or "85! Wow! are you gonna try for 100?" Oh, yeah... like I have some say as to whether that happens! Young smart ass punks! Who do these 50-year olds think they are, anyway!

Testing 1-2-3

So, here I am entering the blog world and wondering what fowl, misguided stuff will suddenly pop up on this page.

In honor of my first night, I'll just chill and wait for the first item to present itself tomorrow. It will be my son's 15th birthday. Surely he'll do something to set me off.

Stay tuned!