Friday, Black II

So, I went to Black Friday.

I went with having no sleep since 7am Thursday.

I went with my wife, younger brother and sister in tow, and my mother for part of it.

I stood for about an hour in a line that wrapped around 4 times.

I witnessed an idiot pushing a shopping cart through a swarm of shoulder to shoulder people, with 5 small items in it. Finally realizing he was clogging traffic up, he took the items out, and left the cart there, which proceeded to continue to clog everyone up.

I witnessed a clerk ring something up twice, and I was too tired to catch it, good thing my wife was paying attention.

I walked over 8 lanes of traffic twice, facing cars who surely couldnt give a damn about the pedestrian right of way.

I carried two thirty lb dumbells (roughly a little less then half my body weight), about 1/3 of a mile through two big box stores and the length of a parking lot.

I spent a total of 14 hours in transit or in stores on Friday.

and I still didnt even get half of my Christmas shopping done.......

Its impossible to win with the Allies!

So, tomorrow is "Turkey Day".

Ive been protesting the festivities for years due to its inherent relation to the treatment of this countries original people.

Aside from that, I wouldnt eat anything anyhow, to ensure myself a "positive" Black Friday experience.

One thing I have been doing for years, is playing a board game called "Axis and Allies" with my dad. Weve done this, probably the last 10 years, every year, but last year, when my sister had some company for Thanksgiving, and it messed it all up.

Some times my sis will join, shes usually a good sport about almost anything. My brother would play years ago, but he hasnt played in an extremely long time.


Axis and Allies is basically a board game made in the mid 1980's which simulates WW2 on a global scale in the most basic of terms. That said, it is probably, to this day, one of the greatest board games ever created.

You begin the game taking a side, the Allies, consisting of Russia, USA, and Britain, or the Axis, Japan and Germany. If there is more then 2 players, the third will take a country, and play on that respective persons team. The manual, I believe, suggests with 3 players, that 2 and 3 take Germany and Japan, but we normally will put the two players on the Allies side, with one person taking the whole Axis.

Its amazing that it took us so long to figure it out, but its basically impossible to win with the Allies without incredible dice rolling.

As anyone who has played the game with standard rules knows, the whole game completely hinges on Japan putting a factory on Indochina or Kwangtong on turn 1. If they are allowed to do that, Russia will be destroyed within 5-7 turns, guaranteed.

There is only 1 sure fire way to deal with that, and since my Dad occasionally reads this, to hide the strategy if he doesnt already know, it should suffice to say that any avid players already probably know what Im referring to.

Outside of that strategy, you are pretty much leaving the game up to an uphill battle of lucky rolls.

I dont know if we will play this year, but Im going to be bringing it over just in case.

Hope everyone has a great day tomorrow.

Friday, Black

Ok, so, Im going to black friday, dispite being broke, mostly just for the experience.

Here is my beef with Black Friday.

I can remember years back, they actually had real sales, with things youd actually want to buy. Over the years, this day has become increasingly a joke.

If I remember correctly, last year, Walmart was crying about how they missed their sales goals and that they didnt "give it their best effort".

Well geez, maybe you should have real sales, on stuff people actually want to buy.

A Pentium 4 with a 17" flat screen LCD, 250gigs of harddrive, 1 gig or more of ram, and a detachable graphics card....all for $300 bucks? That might be something Id think about.

Instead, this system would be regular priced. Theyd be happy to sell you a Celeron with onboard graphics and 80 gigs of ram for that price........and its funny, because, an equivalent machine is on sale, somewhere, for that price any average Sunday......nice.

Or maybe the "XBOX 360 package" which is still $400 but might come with a game.....and by "game" I mean possibly the most retarded game available which you may or may not be using as a coaster straight out of the box depending on if you have an ebay account or not.

They like to rope you into buying other things. For instance, the Xbox360 faceplate will be on sale, or the Nintendo DS kit will be on sale, yet the systems will be full price.......nice!

The fun doesnt stop, 3 foot long air hockey tables on sale, but 8-10 foot ones, regular price. PS2 games on sale, not Xbox. Printer ink, but not for all printers.

There is also the huge ticket items, that you couldnt even afford at 50% of, which will have something stupid like 10% off retail. You know, the 5000 ft plasma screen high defer with surround sound and picture in picture, that goes for $4999 normally, and is now $4150 for Black Friday. Wow, let me go out and pick that up.......of course Ill need a Blu Ray disc player, which is full price, but there is a tremendous sale on a selection of discs for it........


Pisses me off.......

So, Ill see you there right?

We dont accept "self pays"....

So, if I havent mentioned, I have a medical condition. An undiagnosed one that has screwed with my life for almost 5 years, and has cost my parents, and then I, thousands of dollars, and I still have no answers.

Any way, since this condition would seriously screw with my ability to serve the below mentioned jury duty, I had to go to the doctor to get a note.

A little background information....

I worked for almost 2 years for one of the largest employers in this country, (not Walmart), from which, I received affordable health benefits (obviously not Walmart). During this time, I built up a history with a doctor, who became pretty familiar with my case.

I was laid off from this company in March 06. With it went my benefits. I got a new job, but the health benefits are far out of my financial grasp, so Ive been without health coverage since March.

On top of that, I got a note in the mail around September saying that my old doctor left, and I was being shifted onto a new doctor.

Back to the story.....

The day after I got the jury duty letter in the mail, I called the doctors office to see if they could just give me a note without me coming in and paying a tremendous bill.

"No sir, shes going to need to see you first". Ok fine, understandable. I never saw this woman in my life and Im going to ask her to vouch for me in the judicial system.

"I dont have any insurance, how much is it going to be if I pay for it myself?"

"I dont know sir, it depends, youre going to have to come in."

Fine.

So, I get some unpaid time off from work that I cant afford...I know, what an awesome perk, and I go into the doctor.

At check in, the lady asks

"Has your insurance changed?"

"I dont have insurance, Im going to pay for it myself."

"Shes not taking self pays right now"

What the flaming hell? You have got to be kidding me. Just driving there has already cost me about 8 bucks not including gas.

"I spoke to a lady on the phone and she told me to go ahead and come in"

"Ok sir"

She goes back and talks to her supervisor, and it literally takes me 20 minutes to be admitted while paying for myself. It has NEVER taken me 20 minutes to be admitted while on insurance, including all paperwork.

Sorry for being too poor to be insured. I knew it was going to cost me an arm and a leg if I ever happened to have the need to walk in to a doctors office, but I didnt expect that it has gotten to the point that people who have no insurance cant even seek medical attention at their local doctors office.

I guess next time Ill try the free clinic. I guess thats the only medical choice for those of us that are economically challenged, in every sense.

Jury Duty

I come home one day last week, and what is in my box? Jury Duty.

For those of you who have never served jury duty, it is probably the WORST institution ever created.

Let me put it in simple terms....

You get the "priveledge" of trying a case of some miscreant as a duty to the legal process.

You also get the "priveledge" of being compensated barely enough to pay for the gas to get to the court house, and this depends on the local, some dont pay you anything.

You could possibly be at one of these cases for days on end, depending on the circumstances. In that case, the local may raise your "compensation" slightly. Of course the definition of slightly is "hardly more then you would make for 8 hours at a minumum wage job".

What do you give up for these "priveledges"?

Well, if you work for an employer like mine who "believes you should serve your civic duty, and therefore graciously provides unpaid leave". You get to donate a whole days pay, for every single day, your service is required. In my case, I make about 4 times more a day then the court will "compensate" me. Being the primary wage earner in my home, I could serve exactly 4 days on the jury until bills start going unpaid for the month. I can only imagine someone who only makes twice, or is the sole wage earner. They probably couldnt afford even one day of this garbage.

Does the government give a damn? No, not really. Does your employer? Hell no.

BUT, I do have an alternative.

My company will allow me to place my vacation days in place of jury days. So, I wont technically "lose" money in this case, I will actually benefit. The only thing is, I get to spend my vacation days sitting in a court room.

What if I didnt have any days? What if I had already used them? What if Im on a case that extends past my available vacation days?

Does the government give a damn? No, not really. Does your employer? Hell no.

After all, no price is too high to involuntarily serve your "civic duty", including loss of home, repossession of any number of items, loss of utilities, or starvation.

Go forth patriots!

'Tis the Season

I will admit it first of all, I am a blatant, avowed atheist, so the following must paint me as a large hypocrite, but not really. I have no religious connection to Christmas, I just love the atmosphere....that said.

I love Christmas. Dont get me confused, Im not the crazy nut who has 6000 things in my yard trying to prove to the neighborhood how big my...ahem....parts are, but I do border on obsession in my own small way.

I listen to Christmas music all year long. I have 52 Christmas songs on a continous play loop at my house. I listen to a Christmas internet radio station while I do my work.....in June.

I have about 20 Christmas DVDs and it grows by the year. I watch them all year around. I watch the TNT Day of Christmas Story, even though I have the DVD.

So, its no surprise that Halloween Evening, which long ago lost its magic for me that it had when I was a kid, has been the negotiated day on which Im "allowed" to put the Christmas tree up, and all the glorious accompanying decorations. Instead of passing out candy, Im straightening out branches, and putting up stockings.

So, with that,

Happy Holidays, and may all your Christmases be bright.