Unless you A) Make minimum wage or B) Your boss comes by today to tell you about your new $.70/hour raise, I would like to wish you happy pay cut day!

This is the day that our wonderful government decided that all of us mean, selfish people who don’t make minimum wage just keep sticking it to these poor underpaid people and decided to take money from us. Don’t get me wrong, this is just one of the many ways our fine representatives have helped us out.

I’ll explain this principle again, and I am certain it won’t be the last time: When you increase the price it costs to make and sell goods, the prices you pay go up. Businesses will NOT take a loss because the minimum wage goes up. They pass that cost increase right on through on every cheeseburger, sack of potatoes or shirt you buy. This means I have less purchasing power for the dollar I make, and the people on minimum wage who we purport to help are back in the same situation within 6 months because they have to buy the same goods at the same prices as everyone else.

So, happy pay-cut day! I hope everyone enjoys it!

In my previous career I was exposed to more hours of radio in a day than most people get in a whole week. I lived and breathed radio. In this amount of time, I have heard my share of commercials and let’s all be honest: we all hate them. Sure there are occasionally some witty and entertaining spots but for the most part they are very stereotypical and cliché.

Your average commercial is something like this:

Do you have problems with your old widget? Ever thought about getting a new widget? Well, our widget is best. Our widgets are shown to be 10% more effective than those other widgets, and imagine the money that will save you every month! So, remember to come visit us for all your widget needs.

These commercials make me crazy, but nothing makes me more drive off the side of a bridge while screaming maniacally crazy than the car commercials:

It should be noted that this entire commercial is done via cellphone.

(First guy) FOLKS WE’RE DOWN HERE ON THE LOT AND WE’VE GOT SOME HOTTTTT DEEEEAAALLLSSSSSSSS!!

(Second Guy) THAT’S RIGHT (First Guy’s name) WE’VE OVERSTOCKED AND THAT MEANS SAVINGS FOR YOU! WE’VE GOT MORE (insert car brand name here) THAN YOU’VE EVER SEEN!

(First guy) WE’VE GOT SO MANY THAT WE CAN’T SEE THEM ALL FROM HERE! THAT MEANS SAVINGS FOR YOU! ZERO PERCENT FINANCING AND NO MONEY DOWN… HECK YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO PAY FOR THE CAR JUST COME PICK ONE OUT!

Ok, you get the idea. They are screaming, getting out of hand and in general being annoying. This is especially true at 3am. First off, you are NOT “out here on the lot” at 3am, so let’s not insult my intelligence. I think you need to know that we don’t appreciate that kind of thing.

Today, I heard a more disturbing advertisement. It was just like a car lot advertisement, but it was for a furniture store. Let me tell ya, their cell phone was even worse than the car lot guys. I couldn’t understand more than half of the ad because it was horribly over modulated. Why do you need to scream about furniture? Why? Do you have market research that shows people buy more furniture when the sales people are screaming and running around like chickens with their heads cut off? I’m willing to bet that it doesn’t actually help.

So, if you have a business I beg you please… Don’t scream in your advertisements. I’m not shopping there if you do.

No… really: I’m not trying to enjoy a quiet dinner with my family. It’s perfectly acceptable to interrupt my meal to tell me how cute my child is 3, maybe 4 times. Really.

No… really: I understand that there is a big push for everyone to “Go Green”. Sure, it takes more gas to run your alternator in the car so the battery can recharge but I’m quite sure using your turn signal won’t make Al Gore cry.

No… really: It’s perfectly acceptable to turn left from the center lane in 6 lanes of traffic.  That’s why I paid extra for the anti-lock brakes.

No… really: I actually did take your parking place on purpose, because I really like getting nasty looks from total strangers. In fact, I love it so much that I paid your neighbor to give me a call when you left the house, I tracked you with a GPS mounted in my car and timed my approach to “your” parking place perfectly just so you could sneer at me out the window. Oh, and that bag of dog food you came here for? I’ll be getting the last one of those too.

No… really: I actually prefer having food thrown at me through a tiny window in the side of a building. It’s almost a sport! Will you be able to get my super-McFatty burger through the window? Will I catch it? How much of my hypocritical diet soda will be left in the cup after it has tumbled 3 or 4 times through my truck?
Maybe they should put sensors on the window that buzz if you hit the sides like the old game “Operation”. This would undoubtedly add a new level of competition to the game.

No… really: I like people. Honest. Scouts Honor.

Aw, who am I kidding?

You’ll notice from the post time that it is quite a bit past what should be nighty-night for me. *EDIT* I just noticed that this template doesn’t put in the time… well, it’s 11:16pm, just for the record *END EDIT*

I have to be at work by approximately 8am every morning, and the drive to work is almost an hour on a good day. That means I need to be up by 6:30. I haven’t been up before 7 all week.

Seems like lately I can’t get past the going to sleep thing. Its always 11:30 or Midnight before I can sleep. I have tried taking melatonin supplements, tonight I took 2 Tylenol PM. That was 2.5 hours ago. I’m still wide stinking awake.

I’ve tried less caffeine, more caffeine and even no caffeine (The jury decided to let me go on the condition that I never let that happen again.)

I’m tired, I just can’t sleep. Don’t think it’s my conscience. Can’t figure out any guilt or unusual stress. Sounds like the boy is having sleeping problems tonight too. He’s in his room playing… at 11:13pm. I”m in my room typing this disjointed and probably very random blog post. This is just one of the many consequences of tiredness: Bad blogging.

I’m going to try this one more time, the sleeping thing. If I can’t sleep tonight, I will assume this as my cue to become super-human; possessing the power to never rest. That’s a pretty crappy superpower if you ask me.

CARP.

Why is it that, myself included, bloggers every so often write posts about how hard it is to actually blog on a regular basis. As if we, the readers didn’t notice that they haven’t posted to their blogs in over 3 months and during that time whatever their last post was about has become completely irrelevant.

Well, here I am. It’s been over a month (just barely) since my last post. I’m going to get this out of my system early: Man, it’s hard to come up with something to write on a semi-regular basis. I mean, first, my life isn’t that interesting. The parts of my life that ARE interesting are actually more “juicy” and gossipy than actually “interesting”.

Well, since the last time I blogged we have had a few adventures. Ann backed into a lady in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It was innocent enough on her part, but honestly I knew from the beginning that it was going to be a hassle. I know how what I am about to say sounds, but please understand that there is a difference between prejudice and observations. This woman is from what we call “The Grove”. “The Grove” is not known for it’s Harvard graduates. Heck, it’s not known for its middle school graduates. In general the people there are not very sociable, typically not well educated and generally grumpy.

For the record I was correct about it being a hassle. She presented an estimate to have her car fixed, I offered to pay for her car to be fixed and she initially agreed. Then she figured out that I was paying instead of my insurance (The repair was less than my deductible, so I didn’t see a need to file on my insurance) and she decided that she wanted a check. She harassed my insurance people and after about a week and a half of her giving me grief I finally got angry enough to make myself clear. Apparently I was just too nice before, but words like “I’m done with you” “You WILL NOT be getting a check” and “If you call again, you’re going to jail” seem to have gotten the job done nicely. I have been ‘grover free for over 2 weeks now. It’s nice and peaceful. Maybe I should feel bad about it, but had you been there, I would bet you would have been the same way. The good thing is I managed to get her off my back without opening my mouth to the point that I got myself in trouble.

Work is going pretty well. I think for most people jobs just are stressful. I’m learning how to come home and let it go most nights. I have started leaving work at the office more and more, and the results are good.

Church stuff is good. We have started a new life group with some friends of ours and it seems to be going well despite the growing pains that always go with establishing a new group. There is the typical member turnover but we seem to be getting a consistent group of people and there have been some really transparent times.

Personally, I feel like God is preparing me for something. What? I dunno. If it is anything like usual it will be something that stretches me and I will probably look back in a couple of years and realize the awesomeness of the whole experience.

Well, this has been your monthly random update on life, the universe and everything.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

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