Finally a new post. Use caution when reading this, there are eff words henceforth.

So, I left this restaurant just a few minutes ago. This place is called The Armadillo Grill. It is affectionately referred to as the Armored Dildo. When you eat here, you will have the best steaks you've had in a long time. The downside of this is that you will be there so long that you may not be able to remember ever not being there. They sat us down, the hostess brought us our drinks and then we waited for 15 minutes for our watress to come take our order. It doesn't take 15 minutes to decide what the fuck you want to eat. Their menu isn't nearly as long as the wait. She finally comes around and gets our order. I already know that it's going to take at least 45 minutes to get the order out to us, so the 15 minute wait to place the order only pissed me off. Then we proceed to wait and drink our drinks. Of course, we're thirsty people, so we finished our drinks. This was a mistake since apparently in bubblehead waitress school they don't teach you to observe empty glasses and refill them. We waited at least 20 minutes for her to refill our drinks, and then she only came over because we flagged her down. Get ready for this one... When she arrived to refill our glasses...

She stuck her finger in my glass to pick it up.

Take a second to mull that one over.

I feel like I'm making too big a deal out of this, but how fucking discourteous do you have to be to pick up a stranger's drinking glass with your index finger the veteran of God knows what inside it? Come on now, would you want my finger inside your glass? Especially if I've been working all day? I'm not at your house eating dinner with your kids. Of course, I don't dare say anything to her about this. I have this concern be it rational or not that they will doctor the food or drink of a "complainer." I will settle for my waited forever for it chinese finger tea because it's bound to be better tasting than the vomit filled bulemia-ized alternative. I don't want Lipton smegma thank you very much. I can only hope that your finger gets about as much action as I do or else I might have trouble sleeping.

A lot has happened since I last posted. I bought a digital camera with the almighty tax return. I bought a 10 gallon aquarium and various accessories with the same tax return. I set it all up and let it run for 3 days, then I added three fish. You can look these up if you're interested; two dwarf gouramis, and one red finned shark. I know I know, fish experts out there are telling me I have no bottom feeders and the shark will outgrow the tank shortly. Stop your whining. If the fish starts to outgrow the tank I'll just put him in the new tank I'm going to buy. How can I afford this you ask?

By quitting Wal-Mart and starting work tomorrow at 7am with a local oil services company. I'll be working at some place called the mud yard, which sounds ominous. I have to go out and buy some jeans to go with my recently acquired steel toed boots, but otherwise I'm ready. I'll be getting my class A CDL out of this too. All for $12/hour. Guess who's not complaining.

In the process of getting my CDL permit I learned from the doctor that I'm morbidly obese and that my blood pressure is 168/108. This is clearly a recipe for death. I've cut the soda completely from my diet over the last two days, so we'll see what that does. I'm also going to have to exercise I know, and I will get to that soon. I look at it like I'm being paid to lose weight and be healthier. Quitting soda is hard though, almost as hard as quitting smoking. The joke of the week has been morbidly obese.


I'll leave you with a sample from the new camera.

It's been yet another day off when I didn't accomplish anything. I was going to listen to music loud like it's supposed to be but my headphones decided to only work in one ear. I guess I shouldn't complain since I've had these since 1997 or so and they just now had their first problem. Not bad for $15.

Oh yeah I did get my taxes done. I am only mildly frustrated with the process. Apparently if you sell stock during the year and you plan to use taxact to file your taxes, then you'd better only sell one time all year long because there is only one box to enter information. I guess if I want to pay more than $9.95 to file my taxes then I can expect flexibility.

I haven't completely made up my mind how to spend the refund. Most of me wants a new computer. I've had this one since 2002 or so. It has a Duron processor in it. I can't even run command and conquer generals on this thing. My original Xbox is more powerful. A new computer with a digital camera. They seem to be all the rage around here. I really don't have anything to take pictures of, but I'll be sure to get something posted up here just to prove it works, if I buy one. The other thing we are in need of is some living room furniture. Right now if you come over to visit me the only place to sit down is in my room. Although the HDTV is in there the seating leaves a lot to be desired. Who wants to sit next to Jason on the bed? Why so glum?

Fat Bottomed Girls is one of the best songs to listen to at this time in the morning.

It's also messy in here. I pick up the clothes, but I don't have a dresser. The solution is these shelves that used to hold my DVD's back in the day. Now they hold clothes, and although they are adequate for the task they don't hide them very well. I also have boxes piled up neatly in the corner because I have no where to unpack them. I guess I could throw some stuff out. Maybe I don't need that CD cover to Stone Temple Pilots when I haven't seen the CD that goes inside it in over 5 years.

It's getting harder to maintain a train of thought here.

I'm sitting here listening to Green Bay sing Long View, and I'm realizing that my life is kind of patterned off this song. I have got to get off my ass and get something done. The difference is that I'm not a chronic masturbating pothead. Thank God for that. I've got the History Channel and video games instead. I also watch Spike.

Today they had world's wildest police videos or something. I've noticed that rednecks always get pulled over drunk with no shirts on. How hard is it to put a shirt on? Is there some kind of redneck code where you aren't a real man if you wear some cotton woven pussy t-shirt? Is going shirtless symbolic of your naked stupidity? Are you saying that I'm just jealous because I'm too fat to not wear a shirt in public? Guess what jackass, most rednecks are too fat to not wear a shirt too. Beer and wife beating don't exactly give you a six pack. (I work strictly from stereotypes, especially with a tv inspired blog).

I guess there are situations where it's permissible to not wear a shirt. If you're working outside like on a construction site where you are doing serious manual labor then I could see why you'd want to. If you're loading or unloading hay, then I can see it too. Showers and swimming are also acceptable. Going to the grocery store? Not acceptable. Church? Not acceptable. Probably not acceptable at a job interview either. I guess that depends on the job. If you're auditioning for Chippendales then you kind of have to take the shirt off.

I'm succeeding in finding things to complain about that don't relate to Wal-Mart. Hell these things don't even relate to me.

We ended up watching 300. You can see this post to find out what I thought of it.

Today I was out mowing the lawn with this reel mower we purchased from Lowes. Apparently to save money they had their sweat shop install plastic gear wheels with metal pins that drive them. Amazingly, the metal pin has worn through the plastic gears. As a result, the blades don't turn when you push the mower. I'm about 3/4 of the way done with the lawn, and now it gets to look like some lazy schmo (how do you spell that?) decided it was too hard to mow this lawn. All 1/2 acre of it. I think it's a half acre anyway, I really don't know. It's like only getting half of your hair cut.

I hope we still have the receipt so we can get it exchanged for a new one. We've only mowed the lawn about 4 times. Am I supposed to magically avoid all sticks in the grass? Is this mower only designed to mow golf courses? It does a marvelous job, when the cheap ass gears haven't worn out. Would it have been so hard to install metal gears?

Today we are going to see a movie. We'll either see 300, Zodiac, or some other movie that was mentioned to me in passing but sounded vaguely intriguing. I'm nervous about going to see a movie anymore due to my recent lack of judgment. My choices lately have included Aeon Flux, Ghost Rider and Casino Royale. Casino Royale and Ghost Rider would be fine as rentals, and I would even buy something like Casino Royale. Aeon Flux needs to be flushed down the toilet in Desperado. That movie was terrible. It was terrible and I saw it in the theater. I saw it in HD 7.1 surround full on suck. I hope the movie we see isn't this bad. I'm leaning towards 300, but I recently learned that Zodiac was directed by David Fincher. I learned this from MySpace of all damned places. Anyway, I've got to go get ready. I'll try to post which movie we saw sometime before the week is out.

The customer is technologically inept. From asking where the internet explorers are to thinking that component video also carries sound, they really excel at ignorance at your local Wal-Mart. For one thing, you shouldn't be asking someone at Wal-Mart any kind of tech questions at all. It happens that at our Wal-Mart we have several people who know technical information. But you as the customer aren't really interested in technical information. You aren't interested in the fact that your new computer doesn't work properly because you screwed something up in the setup process. You think that the CD drive is a cup holder. You think that widescreen movies have had something cropped off of them. This is because you are misinformed. When you are given the correct information and you insist that this new information is wrong, then that makes you a moron. Yes, I said it. If you are corrected on something and you refuse to learn, you are a moron. You're a moron because you choose to be. No one is born a moron. You have made a series of life choices that made you what you are (moron).

The customer is a thief. While you the customer pay the bills by buying stuff, when you order a cup of popcorn chicken and then don't pay for it, leaving it on the shelf somewhere for us to clean up, you are a thief. When you return a bag of frozen rolls because you thought you were buying biscuits, you are a thief. When you return something because you didn't like the flavor, you are a thief. You are not entitled to a pleasant food experience when you are trying something new. And how bad off are you that you can't spare $3 on a fucking bag of rolls? I work at Wal-Mart and make less than the poverty line a year and I can spare $3. And you know what? I own my own home. You have no excuse.

The customer is always a jerk. Don't feed me the bipolar excuse, shut your mouth if you have nothing nice to say. Contrary to your opinion, the person in the blue vest isn't interested in your opinion. Because you are the customer, you don't know what you're talking about. The person who works with this item every day is far above you in knowing its proper use. Treating them like crap doesn't get you anything except a special place in hell. You can avoid Wal-Mart if you wish, but all retail personnel feel like this most of the time when dealing with you.

The customer is always an interruption. Please try to remember this when you ask someone where something is. We will gladly help you find it, but keep the fact that you are an interruption at the forefront of your thinking so as to avoid being a jerk. When you say that you bought it here last week, you are a liar. We haven't carried it in three years. I am certain that you bought it at another Wal-Mart, and we will probably never carry this item again. The home office is adept at making sure we don't have what the customer wants, that way they don't have to pay as big a bonus in April.

If the customer is the boss, the boss needs to get off his ass and do something for himself once in a while. You are quite capable of putting minutes on your own damned prepaid cell phone. Whose phone is it? If it's not mine, then I'm not adding minutes to it. It's one of the easiest things you will ever do. It's the same idea behind buying groceries to refill your fridge when it's empty. You figured that out didn't you? Well, figure this out. The phone, while it is a piece of technology, is not capable of hurting you. It will cause you no pain, it will not simply cease to function because you FOLLOWED WRITTEN DIRECTIONS. If you can't read, public education has been paid by taxes for years, you need to get in there and learn how. A six year old can do it for God's sake, are you saying that a six year old deserves to be in charge of you?

To all the good customers who buy all of your stuff without complaining and hook up your own tv's correctly and replace equipment when it breaks without blaming it on the sales associate I thank you. You are a rare breed. You are very special indeed. Keep up the good work, it is a pleasure working for you. You almost make it possible to deal with the rest of them.

I'm not sure why I'm posting today, except that it's 8am and I am having a medicinal dose of coffee. I woke up this morning with a pounding caffeine headache, and only two cups of coffee will cure it. You can't dilute medicinal coffee with any of that "creamer" or "sweetener" nonsense. It's just not as effective.

Yesterday I played Gears of War in online coop mode for the first time. The first thing I noticed was how embarrassing it is when you die from the same crap over and over. Most of the time your teammate can revive you, but there are times when you can't reach him and if he dies or you die it's back to the last checkpoint. This includes back to the last in game cinema as well. At least I figured out how to skip them. So, last night we beat the game on hardcore. Now I will start it on insane, which may cost me a controller. I was already dying with great efficiency on hardcore, I imagine this will be worse by it's nature. It is much easier to play with another human than with computer teammates, which are morons.

Hang on I have to refill my coffee...

There. I usually drink my coffee with a glass of cold water handy. I use the water to settle the coffee stomach jitters. It works pretty well, considering that I usually drink morning coffee on an empty stomach. So today the endless Sunday debate begins. Do I go to church, or do I go to bed? I probably should go to church, but I'm tired. I'm tired because I had to go pick my Dad up from work at 11pm last night and had to turn around and wake up at 6:30 to take him back in to work. Last Thursday I had to go pick him up at 1:10am and then wake up at 6am so I could go to work, but wait, I had to take him back in to work first. Imagine working a 19 hour day followed by five hours of sleep and a twelve hour day. Now imagine the 19 hour day was worth $251 by itself. Are you torn? I'm torn. That beats the stuffing out of Wal-Mart's pay. I wouldn't want to be a new father with such a schedule though.

I'm not complaining about having to wake up and stay up. I figure that's part of being family. If I can't be there for my family, then I'm not much good. How many times have they had to lose sleep to come pick me up somewhere? I don't know exactly, but I'm sure it's more than once.

Right now I'm home on lunch eating some Blue Bell Century Sundae. Apparently it's the 100th anniversary of Blue Bell, and they have released this limited edition stuff. It's homemade vanilla flavor mixed with chocolate and caramel swirls, and marachino cherries. It's not bad. I've had better flavors before, but this came in a black container with frickin candles on it. That's hardcore packaging there.

I don't normally eat ice cream on lunch except when I don't want to microwave something to eat. How lazy do you have to be to not want to microwave something? I'm not sure but I may have lost a pound last week, so I have to do something about that. I'm tired of sandwiches, there are no chicken tenders in the freezer and I'm not really that hungry anyway. The end result is I eat what's ready to eat, and in this case it's ice cream.

Yesterday I worked 1.52 hours over my regular shift because there were 2 pallets and a retarded amount of backstock that all went out on the shelf. I had to clear it out because there was a 900 something piece truck due that night and no evening associate to work it. Today I have three pallets to work, but they are pulling me to help get rid of the risers in electronics and automotive. Normally I wouldn't object to being removed from my cold ass work area, but today I'm actually enjoying working all this crap out onto the shelf. I don't know why exactly, but I actually want to do a good job this week. My morals must have started taking steroids.

Since I'm looking for work outside of Wal-Mart, I wonder what it takes to be the guy that traces chalk around the bodies at crime scenes. Is there a specific job title for this or do you just lose a bet or draw a short straw? How do you trace a guy that had his head blown off? Do you approximate the head shape, hoping you don't get it wrong? Is there a bonus for getting it right? How do you deal with blood pools? Do they have some kind of blood penetrating chalk? Do you have to bring your own chalk? Maybe it's helpful to have experience making chalk drawings on sidewalks at art shows. I wonder if when you trace a dead guy who is missing an arm, do you draw an arrow from the arm socket to where the arm is and then trace the arm? Does it matter what color chalk you use? Can I bring a set of several colors and draw up a legend so you'll know what color was what body? Is that something I could put in my will, that I would prefer navy blue chalk to be used to trace my body in case of wrongful death requiring police investigation? I guess I could google this, but I'm not sure how to search for it. "Guy who traces bodies" might be a good start, but I don't want to trigger any patriot act software.

A guy told me one time that he convinced a girl at this bar that his military occupational specialty was in flight missile repairman.

Lastly, if the Bears win the superbowl, are they who we thought they were? Can we go ahead and crown their ass?

Watching the history channel, I realize that beef jerky looks totally nasty before it's dried. It is mixed with the sauce in some kind of apocalyptic dryer. It looked like brown mucus coated livers, except thinner, like that membrane shit they find in Alien movies. It wasn't all brown, there was some red in there too, as if they took the cows still alive and shredded them through an exhaust fan.

Let's see, news since my last post...

Dad now drives tankers locally and is home every night. He picks up water from oil fields and takes it to disposal units for $13.62 per hour. Apparently, and this makes sense to me anyway, they push the oil out of wherever it is by injecting the pocket with water. It ends up being salt water by the time it gets back to the surface, and according to the history channel, they distill the water to get salt. I don't know if it's table salt, but apparently it's something they can sell. Oil companies do more than you think they do.

My sister works for the state hospital, with the crazies. She seems to like it, although some days are harder than others. It's like a nursing home for delusional people. She's not allowed to mention names or specific conditions due to doctor patient confidentiality or something similar.

Mom has moved to overnight cashiering, and therefore doesn't have to stock grocery or deal as much with a man named after soup. She's there now. In fact, my whole family is at work except for me. I'm sitting here blogging like some kind of lazy person.

Speaking of me, I'm about to get a CDL permit. I intend to use this permit to get hired as a driver with someone who is willing to train me to drive for them and will let me use their vehicle for the road test. I'm finally acting on my situation. It's been six months in the making, but it's finally happening. I've also been playing Gears of War. I can't seem to beat the last boss, because I didn't bring any bigger guns. I thought I could get away with using a shotgun and the Lancer. Not so, mustafa. I guess I'll start over from the beginning of the chapter. It is the most fun I've had playing games in a long time. I totally suck at multiplayer though. I am much better at Call of Duty 2, which I can't play because the disk is cracked.

In case you think I'm updating without bitching about Wal-Mart, I am.