This is the end… my only friend, the end. – Jim Morrison
My company just announced that we will be forced to shut down for ten days, 6 over the Christams holiday, and 4 in February during Chinese New Year. And, in a tune all too familiar with the other Silicon Valleyites in my audience, these days will be unpaid.
I think it’s funny that I only get 10 days of vacation a year anyway; which means I would have to use them all on these shutdown days just to break even. Time to brush up that resume.
US Indicts Tyson Foods for Alien Smuggling
Bleh. I started to go for the easy joke and write a fake article that made a play with the word “aliens” by replacing phrases like “Justice Department” with “Justice League” and “INS” with “MIB”… but then I realized I was a dork and aborted.
Of a more disturbing nature is the e-mail I just got from buy.com entitled:
Need a gift?- It’s Not To Late!
CostCo
I swung by CostCo during lunch today. For those of you who haven’t heard me talk about Costco in the past, it’s like a giant WallMart with free food samples.
I went there for only one thing: cheap memory for my camera. 128MB for $60! How you can beat that? At any rate, I rush into CostCo, evading slow, dim-witted customers like a running back. I delay my gratification by speeding up and down the other electronics aisles, pushing various buttons, turning knobs, opening and closing CD/DVD trays, until I stumble upon my quarry. Quick double-check that this is indeed the right version, and I’m golden.
“But wait,” I think, “it’s lunchtime and there’s food here, I might as well troll for freebies.” I start to walk, still quickly, towards the food section. I feel a little conspicuous skulking around without a cart, so I grab an abandoned one to fill out my customer disguise.
“Hmmm, free smoked salmon, gooood.” I marvel at the lines of people gathered around free samples of beef jerky and apple juice. I’m not desperate, if I can’t just roll by and stick my hand out, I’m not standing around like a chump.
“Oh, bread! I’m almost out of bread, I should grab some.” I like buying bread at Costco. The kind I get comes in a pack with two humongous loaves, and the words “Institutional Size” printed on the front. I like the idea that the bread that I’m eating is the same bread that the split-personalities in the insane asylum are eating.
“Hmm, that reminds me, I’m out of chips and salsa, too.” I’m leaving for a week of vacation on Friday, but chips will keep. Plus, I haven’t been buying groceries for the last two weeks in deference to the aforementioned vacation, and chips could sustain me for the next few days. Grabbing the gallon size salsa, and the 5 pound bag of chips, I briefly entertain getting the 3 pound bag of mini-marshmallows simply because I can. I, however, am not going to be made a Tool of the Man, simply because They advertise a much-loved product at a reasonable price. I move on.
“Pepsi! Life blood, god’s nectar, 30-pack goodness!” Check. Friends are coming for New Year’s, too, so I almost pick up a bottle of Courvoisier as a joke, but decide to wait until they actually get here.
“I might as well check out the DVD’s while I’m here.” I spy nothing of interest (save for the hot girl looking at cookbooks), although I do see a Johnny Mathis Merry Christmas CD for $6. My mom wanted Christmas music, and this used to be an old fave on the record player. I actually audibly say, “6 bucks?! Can’t beat that!”
I swing one more time around the food area to see if the smoke salmon guy is open. He’s in between the repetitive drudgery of thawing out salmon and putting the pieces on crackers, so I speed by instead…as I said, I’m not waiting around like a sucker.
“Mmmmm 2 pounds of cheese…” I eat a lot of nachos when I have a lot of chips; but, I’m too smart to fall victim to the cheese. I know that I’m going back to work, so I just need things that don’t need to be refrigerated.
Shopping done, I head to the registers. I round the corner of a Snickers mountain, and survey the lines, when it hits me:
I walked to CostCo.
Then something else hits me:
What the hell am I doing with all this stuff?!
15 minutes of standing in line later, I walk out with my memory and the Johnny Mathis CD secure in the knowledge that I really stuck it to The Man by leaving my cart in the men’s underwear section…
Prior to a Christams party (that I ended up not going to at the last minute), I went shopping for an ornament. If you know me at all, you’ll understand how it was my personal mission to find the most disgustingly un-Christmasy ornament available. Le Target proved to not only have the Kleenex I was in need of, but also a particular gem, modeled here by my friend Heather:
Or for a closer look:
What’s that grandpa? Well, of course, they have the perfect ornament to get ol’ soldiers like you in the Christmas spirit!
What’s that you say? In camouflage with a shotgun? Ummm, well, I’ll try. Old man ornaments abound; but ornaments with camo and a gun, I don’t know… AND the dog? AND a dead duck?!
sigh so beautifully wrong…
Mom of three heads state’s war on pot farmers.
You know, by changing the punctuation, that might lead you to an entirely different place:
Mom of three heads, states “war” on pot farmers
This is the first time in a long time that I’ve Christmas shopped entirely via brick and mortar stores. Last year, in fact, I’m fairly sure I never even left my apartment. For some reason, though, this year I had some strange sort of laziness overtake me; where, by my deluded logic, it was less of a pain to actually go out shopping instead of dragging myself the 10 feet from my couch to my computer. Two observations:
1. I can’t find a gawwwwwwdam thing without amazon.com
2. Where did all of the Salvation Army Santa’s go?
UPDATE
Seriously, though, where are the ringing Santa’s? As I mentioned, this being the first year in a while that I’ve even ventured to the vicinity of the mall during Christmas, there may have been some agreement set in place years ago that I was unaware of, that eradicated the Salvation Army from all store fronts. Either way, I haven’t seen a single one! Not in front of Macy’s, not in front of Nordstrom’s…not even in front of Le Target. It’s rather surreal, actually…
With that last post, my Life-score sinks to a rather impressive -973; which clinches my spot in the playoffs, and more than insures that I am most definitely going to Hell.
I just had the raddest conversation with my friend Jules, who I’m reasonably sure pleaseohpleaseohplease doesn’t read my blog.
ring ring
me: Hello?
Jules: Daaaaaave!
me: What’s up?
Jules: You know that guy I’m dating?
me: Yeah?
Jules: Well, it’s going OK, but the problem is…
me: He’s not me?
Jules: Ha! Well sorta, but there’s something else [whispers] his, uh, thing is kinda small!
me: a-ha…a-HA… A-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Jules: Daaaave!
me: So…how small are we talking about?
Jules: Well, it’s not that small, I think it’s probably normal..it’s just that S was so big
me: So how long?
Jules: Well, normal…what’s normal?
me: I ain’t sayin’ anything until I hear what you say.
Jules: Like 5-6 inches
me: Ah, hehe, that’s not awful…
Jules: I think it’s more the thickness, though…
me: So what are we looking at? A quarter?
Jules: No, bigger than that
me: Umm, half-dollar?
Jules: Um, yeah! About the size of a half-dollar! hehe
me: A-HAHAHAHA!
Jules: A half-dollar Dave! hehehehe
me: A-HAHAHA ‹teasing singsong›Your boyfriend’s a half-dollar! Your boyfriend’s a half-dollar!‹/teasing singsong›
So Snorland is down again due to the scrips being too server intensive. What this means for the future of my comments system, I don’t know. So, if any of you have a recommendation for a comments system that I can host myself, let me know…
In other news, I am in love.
There are two ways to do Vegas.
One is the way you all know from Swingers: you dress up in suits, do it up all classy, gamble like a high-roller, and be smooth with the ladeez.
Another way is the way my friends and I do it. It’s largely the same as the first version, except we do it up supa-cheezy-style, yo.
