The map program says I can make it in 16.5 hours. I’ve never been able to pull it off in less than eighteen. Road construction, potty breaks, fast food, speed traps, general exhaustion… I’ve made the drive straight through many times but never this close together.
Work all day, drive up, attend funeral, sleep, drive home, half-sleep, work all day. I feel like maybe we should have a truckload of Coors beer and Jerry Reed running interference for us…
At least the weather will be nice, they say it’ll be in the 50′s at night. I’ll be too tired to notice.
Happy labor day everyone!
Hey guys, thanks for commenting on some posts recently. It gets to feeling real weird in here when I’m all alone. I keep posting even when no one says anything, but it’s really cool to see your comments… Thanks!
Just a couple short items to close out this mixed up week…
I don’t play a lot of video games (much to the chagrin of my brother). I get obsessed with a game for a few weeks and then I don’t play anything at all for six months. So when they finally came out with StarCraft 2, I got a little excited. When I saw the $60 price, I became a lot less excited. I’ll wait for the inevitable box set after the expansion comes out. So I’ve been playing the original 1998 version all week. Not because I’m an old school gamer or anything cool like that, just because I’m not spending $60 on a game I’ll ignore after a week goes by.
I have a question, am I the only one who farms out the entire map after defeating the other teams? I wipe everybody out except for one or two innocuous buildings like a supply depot or a pylon and then I set up bases all over the place to gather all the minerals and gas available before finally knocking down the last buildings and finishing the game. I like to imagine it like a race for supplies before leaving the planet to scavenge again somewhere else. Am I alone in this?
Today I ate my first Hostess Twinkie in years. I think it might have been close to 25 years since I’ve had one of those. As soon as I popped it in my mouth I made a decision; I am buying an actual vintage metal “Star Wars” lunch box to carry to work. Unless I can find a vintage style “My Little Cthulhu” lunch box. A few years back I almost bought an old style lunch box from the comic shop. I couldn’t decide between the “Ramones” or “Bettie Page”. I waited until they finally both sold and I didn’t have to decide… I didn’t have anything to put in the box anyway, I just wanted it.
This week is the big “back to school” push and I don’t see an aisle full of bright, colorful lunch boxes. Dukes of Hazzard, A-Team, Holly Hobbie, Smurfs, Hong Kong Phooey… Can’t tell I grew up in the early 80′s can you?
The only reason I was in the store in the first place was to buy a memory card. I had to buy one for work. I need a 2G microSD card. I was authorized to buy a 4G and hey, if you only need 2M, 2G will do the job just fine but why not get the extra room? Our manager said that you can get them at Wal-Mart for $15. I go in and sure enough, right on the empty slot that says 4GMicroSD is the price for $14 and change. They’re out. They have the 2G but dammit now I have to decide, do I want it now or do I want the 4G? Becca was standing beside me and I’m always telling her to wait to get the right stuff instead of settling.
So we run into Best-Buy. They have the 4G card. Same brand, same packaging; $29 and change. A nice hearty “Fuck this!” and I turned around and walked out. Later this afternoon I ended up across town and picked up the 4G for $15 at another Wal-Mart but wow, Best Buy is twice the price? All these people that have this hate for Wal-Mart must have deep pockets. I’ll endure the zoo of sub-mutants masquerading as humans to get the 50% off thank you very much…
I just realized I’m out of yard trash bags and I’m planning on mowing the lawn tomorrow. Is this sufficient reason to put it off and sleep in until noon? I’m also out of DVD-Rs, I can’t take a second run into Wallyworld in one day, this stuff will have to wait. It’s not the store, it’s the denizens. I can only take so much exposure to what has become the “real world”…
I think my 20th High School reunion is this weekend. I could look it up but it would take more effort than I feel it is worth. Seriously, it’s like three clicks away, I wouldn’t have to move the mouse very far, and I still just couldn’t be bothered. Instead, I’ll spend a half hour writing this all out…
When the original invitations came I thought about it for close to two minutes. And then I promptly stashed the idea away in my brain’s recycle bin. I didn’t see the point. The class reunions I see in movies are possibly the best depiction of a “personal Hell” that I can imagine. We went to Teresa’s 10 year reunion (same school, one year ahead of me) and it was exactly what I expected from the movies although there were less hitmen, porn-stars, zombies and violence. Bad music, bad food, everyone’s just a fatter version of who they were in school. I don’t see the appeal.
Then a few of you found out I wasn’t going.
You told me I’d regret it. You said that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and even if it sucked, why take the chance on missing out on it? (Your Occam’s razor failed to convince me your religion was worth taking a chance on, why would I fall for it about this?) I asked around, asked who really goes to these things? And that’s when I got a few people that said they agreed with me. I also got someone telling me that I have to go simply to hang out with them. This became the only reason I considered it, even though I never spent a lot of time with this person back in school. I’ve talked to her on-line recently and she seems pretty cool. So I left it open and promised I’d think about it but I really didn’t think I’d end up going. Aside from her there were a couple of other recent FaceBook re-connects that I wouldn’t mind saying hello to… but isn’t that what we did on FaceBook?
As the registration deadline approached I had to make a choice. I gave it some honest thought and came up with, “Why the FUCK would I go to this thing?!”
It’s just doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m not one of those people that looks back on high school as one of the best times of their lives. It wasn’t bad but nothing worth a reunion. I reminisce and get nostalgic sometimes but I can’t imagine setting aside a weekend and getting dressed up to do so. (Yes, there is a dress code!) If high school is where your life peaked, maybe a reunion is for you. Not me baby. I’m nothing like I was back then and hopefully few of them are either.
I try to imagine the conversations I might have and I draw a blank. I still have nothing in common with people that I had nothing in common with twenty years ago! I could sit through a couple hours of people telling me about their kids and jobs. That’s expected social behavior and I could deal with that but you KNOW that’s not where people leave the conversations. Now they have to tell me all about their AWESOME 1000″ television or their 0-60 in 1.1sec car or their yacht or their exotic motorcycle… Seriously, most people don’t understand the art of conversation anymore. If I’m interested, I’ll hold up my half of the conversation. Otherwise, move on to a topic other than what a shallow douchebag you are. I painstakingly weeded these kinds of people out of my personal life, why would I want to do it with strangers that happened to go to the same high school as I did?
I try to count more than four or five people I’m interested in seeing and I can’t… It was at the point that I thought, “If X, Y and Z were coming, I’d go to the reunion” that I realized it’s just another night of branching off into cliques. Every table will have conversations custom suited to the faulty/enhanced memories of the people who knew each other twenty years ago. Other than the obligatory wandering “Hi, Eric Stratton, fancy so-and-so. Damn glad to meet you”, what are the odds of anyone walking around the tables and meeting new people at something like this? You go to see the people you knew back then. The people I knew back then that I’d be interested in spending an evening with fall into three categories; 1: I stay in contact with them through FaceBook. 2: I still see them in real life or 3: They live far away (Puerto Rico) so they fall into the FaceBook category…
I worked at an office building in downtown Jacksonville for a few years. If they had a 20 year reunion the tables would be filled with people from the same offices. People from the 2nd floor wouldn’t mingle with people from the 15th floor and so on. People would look at you like you were fucking NUTS for organizing a 20th reunion for an office building wouldn’t they? So why are high school reunions different?
Of course there’s the Peter Griffin way to go to a reunion. Dressed up in a space suit with a cowboy hat and a huge bling necklace. “I’m a rich astronaut cowboy” bullshit. Well, I’m not much for trying to impress people. I’m not much for lying about myself (maybe TO myself but rarely about myself…) So this is my rap to anyone who approaches me at a reunion:
“I’m approaching 40, I’m fatter than any human being should be, I’m not a rock star like I had hoped and I’m not even trying to be cool anymore. My kid is fricking amazing but I’m not going to brag about her achievements as if they are my own. I’m married to an incredible woman who treats me better than I have any right to hope for. We’re happy in who we are and I couldn’t possibly care less what you think of me. So what have you been up to?”
The organizing committee just sent out two more events for the reunion weekend. A golf trip and a beach trip. Yeah, that’s me isn’t it? I haven’t golfed in ten years and I hate the beach when the sun is up. If you’re a successful businessman who loves to golf… If you remember high school as the happiest days of your life… then go forth and have fun. Otherwise, why?
I finally RSVPd “no” to all three. That was the easy part. The hard part was when I had to admit to my FaceBook friend that I wasn’t going. She responded that she wasn’t either. Cool, no sense in it. Maybe instead we’ll pick and choose who we want to say hello to instead of pretending to be interested or impressed with total strangers who occupied the same building for three years.
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