Nice Trash

Recently a large item was delivered to my house. Not only did it arrive in a large box but as it usually happens with large items, the large box was mostly filled with packing Styrofoam. In the good old days I could have just brought this box and it's foamy contents to the street on trash day, but I live in one of those towns which mandates how much stuff you are allowed to throw away in any given week. They give you a couple of trash barrels and if something doesn't fit in a barrel then you are just going to have to find an alternate way to get rid of your trash. So instead of being dragged 20 feet the box had to be specially driven to the dump on Saturday. Also, the people working wouldn't take the Styrofoam with the box - that had to be put in with the rest of the recycling at the normal trash pickup time. Fine, it's annoying to drag this stuff back and forth, but apparently it has to be done.

Unfortunately, these weren't your standard packing peanuts. If that was the case I would have just collected them in a bag and been done with it. Instead this box came full of the harder, sturdier foam panels lining the sides of the box. They weigh about the same, but they are a lot more difficult to squish due to their rigidity, meaning they take up a lot more room. There was no easy way to pack them into the barrel, so what I did instead was put them in a contractors bag, tie it shut to make sure nothing blew away during the night and then placed the bag on top of the open barrel. Not the best-looking solution, but I thought it was good enough to work. Turns out that I was wrong. The next day there was a sticker on the bag, saying that they wouldn't take the recycling away because it was in violation of the rules. Apparently, there aren't supposed to be any plastic bags in recycling barrels and the lids need to be able to close. Essentially, it turns out that my trash wasn't neat enough for the town.

Look, I'm all for recycling but not if you're going to make it into a hassle. It's would be like someone asking you to make some food for a party they were throwing as a favor, but then placing all sorts of dietary restrictions on what you were planning to make. You're lucky I care enough to be recycling at all, but now you'll only take my stuff if it meets all your requirements? Oh, and they didn't even take the rest of my recycling. So, not only did they leave me with an extra bag of stuff to be recycled that wasn't up to some code no one told me existed, they left an entire barrel of stuff that met their requirements and would have been fine to take, meaning my recycling barrel is already full and I have two more weeks to recycling day. When some stuff that should be recycled ends up in the regular garbage due to lack of room they'll have no one to blame but themselves.

When the hell did garbagemen get to become so damn picky? Currently my trash and recycling service is the kind where the trucks roll down the street until it stops in front of a house where a giant arm extends from the side of the truck to pick up the barrel and dump its contents into the bin on the back. And even though the machine seems to be doing all the work, every truck has two guys in it. I get that one guy is there to drive the thing, but as near as I can tell the other guy is just there to make sure the driver doesn't get lonely. You mean to tell me it would have killed him to jump out for 20 seconds to take the bag off the barrel so they could have at least taken the rest of my stuff? He obviously had to get out to put a sticker on it. What, was he unwilling to touch a bag of Styrofoam? He's a professional trash collector: didn't anyone tell him touching other people's garbage might come up at some point? Because I kind of feel like it should have been mentioned during orientation. Or, like me, did he only find out the rules after the fact? I guess it's true what they say: garbage is a dirty business.

Not Fooling Anyone

Every town in America has one or two shops in it that people can't figure out how they stay in business. You probably know the ones that I am talking about: small, not located in a convenient area and they sell an item that usually doesn't have much appeal to a lot of people. Normally this would be a perfect storm to drive them out of business by the end of the month, yet somehow they continue to stay open even though you never see any customers in there. The most likely scenario is that they are either very well funded by people who saved their entire lives to open a store dedicated to a product they have always had a passion for or the owners got in to the location at a ridiculously low and lock-in rent. Now, the joke that I always make about stores like this are that they are fronts for the mob. Well, it turns out that I should have been a detective, because on a few occasions lately I would have been right.

The first one was discovered a couple weeks back, when a local day spa turned out to be covering up a prostitution and drug ring. (I guess the hot rocks massage wasn't the only thing they could think of to make people relaxed.) Then about two weeks ago a local bike shop was raided and they found a large stash of drugs in the back. (Turns out people who want to make a career out of riding bikes like smoking weed. Who knew?) All of this has done nothing except raise my awareness to anything that seems even slightly off. Now I'm not just joking about stores being mob-funded - I expect it to turn out to be true. The issue has been compounded by the fact that is now time for holiday shopping and if you can't think of anything to get people you find yourself wandering into a lot of smaller and less-crowded stores looking for gift inspiration. What I'm finding instead of gifts is that I'm more convinced than ever that some store outside of the big chains are absolutely just a mask for illegal activities.

I think it has everything to do with who is behind the counter. For example, I was in an arts and craft kind of store the other day. It was the kind of store where people sell home-painted signs and you expect both the clientele and the staff to be around 75 years old. Instead working the registers was a mid-30s man who was not exactly carrying himself with a welcoming demeanor. Also, when I went to ask him for a gift recommendation he appeared to be woefully unprepared to answer such a question with a limited knowledge of both arts and crafts. Now, it is entirely possible that in the current job market people are scrambling to find work and are forced to take employment in an area outside their comfort zone. But, given the events of the passed couple of weeks, it mostly felt like this guy wasn't interested in making a profit as much as not attracting attention to himself.

Does this mean that every small business is nothing more than a shell corporation for some larger crime syndicate? Of course not. But, the fact remains that some of them are. It also means that those stores should be a little more careful about who they make the public faces of their stores. Even if the store exists only to cover up illegal activities they should at least make sure that it's a good cover. Hire a couple of useful and friendly salespeople to blend in among the regulars who are just there to protect the larger interests. It will make the whole thing seem more on the up-and-up. And even if you can't fool everyone, it will increase the chances the unconvinced might be willing to let it slide. Customers are willing to overlook a lot of other sins when a place provides good customer service. Not to mention, I'd much rather support a small local business than some giant like Wal-Mart. After all, when you think about some of the moves that company does, mobsters are saints by comparison.

Leave A Message...

I've always felt as though there are certain phone call cut-off times. You know - people shouldn't be calling too early or too late unless it is an emergency. For example, I never call any of my friends before 10 AM or after 9 PM unless it is something vital (and with me it is never vital). However, this belief has led my brain to conclude that if my phone ever rings too early or too late it can only be bad news on the other end of the line, because why else would anyone be ringing me up so late? This can be quite an issue because not all of my friends have signed this social contract and have no problem calling me up at midnight just to ask me what the villain's name was in "Con Air". Now, because most of my friends are night owls, I have slowly but surely been able to catch on that they most likely aren't calling with bad news no matter how late it is. But that still leaves me to deal with really early morning phone calls which immediately fill me with a sense of dread.

This morning my cell phone started buzzing at me at 5:30, a full hour and half before I had set my alarm to go off. After a few seconds of trying to convince myself otherwise I finally acknowledged that there was no one else in my bedroom it could belong to, so yes, it was my phone and my responsibility to answer it. The few steps it took to reach my phone were filled with all sorts of scenarios of who the hell was calling me this early. It was my cellphone and not the landline, which narrowed the possibilities slightly. My imagination was not helped by the fact that the caller ID just said "Massachusetts", which often shows up when you call from a hospital in the area (don't ask me how I know this). However, before I had a chance to open my phone it stopped ringing. Basically, it had just rung long enough to wake me up. I gave it a second to see if they would call back or leave a voicemail, but neither happened. I tried going back to bed, but it just wasn't going to happen.

As I laid in bed, tossing and turning I found myself getting annoyed. Not only because I was woken up so early but because I had a late Sunday, I was really tired and yet I still couldn't fall back asleep. Of course, I blamed all these problems and more (including global warming) on my anonymous wake-up caller. I mean, if you are going to call and wake me up, the least you could do is leave a message. After a half an hour of failing to find a comfortable spot in my bed I gave up and decided to check my email. But, once I was online I couldn't help but doing a reverse look-up of the number through the phone book. (Mostly to make sure it wasn't from a private doctor's office or anything.) Turns out it was just a local landline and the person most likely dialed the wrong number. For about five seconds I contemplated calling them back and asking them what was so damn important at this early hour, but chickened out. I just hope whoever they called at the correct phone number asked them for me.

Format-Free

Normally, I'm up for a little randomness in my life (as if you couldn't tell from the varied topics on this blog). But when it comes to my music, I seem to get into very specific phases. I get into a mood to hear certain genres of music at certain times and nothing from outside it. This seems to be a problem lately because new music has begun to blur the lines between musical formats. Turning on the radio these days you never know what you are going to hear. Country music can show up on the pop stations just as easily as some rap and hip-hop. Everything can be played just about anywhere (outside of the classic rock stations - on those you know it's going to be 1 of about 13 bands).

I bring this us because the other day I woke up with a chorus in my head and I wasn't sure where it came from. Sometimes I don't mind having a song stuck in my head... this was not one of those times. Honestly, I wasn't sure I even knew what the song was - all I knew was the chorus, which actually made it more annoying. I ended up Googling it and discovering that it's a pretty new song, but that still didn't explain how it got into my brain. It might be in a commercial or promo, but as it kept replaying in my head I wasn't really concerned with how it got in there, I just wanted it out. I thought listening to something else would help clear my mind. So, I turned on the hip-hop station, only to hear the same damn chorus from the same damn song that had been on repeat in my mind all day. It is decidedly not a hip-hop song, so I'm still trying to figure out what it was doing there. Either way, at this point I'm trying to go the other way and playing it so much I get sick of it. Enjoy being included in my strange little experiment.

Weekly Sporties

-Just a couple days after I said they needed to get a move on with their managerial search, the Boston Red Sox hired Bobby Valentine as their new manager. Personally, I was on the fence about the decision at first. After all, I've never met the man but he took a team to the World Series and yet couldn't get another job in the majors until now? That's a red flag. It's like when the super-nice and cheap apartment is still available - suddenly you wonder what might be wrong with it. However, I was convinced this was a smart hire the second it came to light that several Red Sox players were not happy about their new manager. Apparently, they think Bobby V might be a little harder to deal with. I'm sorry, are these the same Red Sox players who blew the biggest lead in Wild Card history and choked away the post season? The ones who couldn't be trusted to police their own clubhouse? Well, sorry boys, but that's just too damn bad if you aren't happy about it. In fact, I kind of hope they are pissed. A kick in the pants could be just what they need. They couldn't get the job done when they had a guy like Terry Francona, who was always on their side, managing them so now they have to be managed by a guy who might not be so willing to fall on the sword for them. All they had to do was win one damn game in September. They have no one to blame for this but themselves, so they really should stop looking to the fans for sympathy.

-Speaking of coaches getting hired and fired, no coaching position might be more expendable than hockey coaches. Seriously, those guys get tossed away quicker than Kleenex. I can only assume it has to do with the nature of hockey. I mean, there are only so many ways to draw up a play going to the net. Still, they are often fired quickly and without much warning. Perhaps the best example of this was former Bruins coach Pat Burns who was coach of the year in 1998 and got fired less than two years later. This time around it was Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau, who got fired Monday morning despite having a winning record and taking the Capitals to the President's Cup (best record in hockey) just two seasons ago. Then, as if to prove my point about how tenuous a hockey coach's job can be the Anaheim Ducks fired their coach Wednesday night just so they could hire Boudreau, even though their coach won them a Stanley Cup in 2007 and just sign a contract extension through 2014 during the summer. Clearly the lesson for hockey coaches is that you should rent, not buy.

-It took all of about two days once the NBA lockout ended for rumors to start back up that the Celtics were looking to trade point guard Rajon Rondo. Rondo was frequently the subject of trade rumors before he signed a contract extension last year and a lot of people thought now that he was signed he would be considered untouchable. However, I'm not surprised. If you look at the Celtics' roster there isn't much else out there people would want to trade for. Garnett makes too much money, Ray Allen is too old, Paul Pierce is a Celtic for life and the rest of the roster simply isn't very appealing. If the Celtics want to make any moves of significance, Rondo is the only attractive chip they have left to bargain with. Now, GM Danny Ainge has said that he doesn't plan to trade Rajon, but where there is smoke there is usually fire. Rondo's name has simply come up way too much for there to be no truth to all these rumors. Also, more than a few people have reminded us that Rondo is really sensitive to this kind of stuff. If they keep dangling him out there at some point they are going to be forced to trade him or risk him poisoning the locker room. I'd like to say I trust Danny to makes these kinds of decision, but the last time I checked he was shipping out Kendrick Perkins so Shaquille O'Neal could get more playing time. Let's just say my confidence in him is a little shaken at the moment.

-One of the names floating out there for Rondo is that of New Orlean's guard Chris Paul. Now, Paul is a very good player and wants to be paid liked it, but he also wants help in the form of another superstar on the roster and he wants to play in a big market. In other words, he wants out of New Orleans. Now, the worst part for the Hornets is that there really isn't much they can do about it. Paul wants to leave (he wants to play for the Knicks), he's eventually going to leave (probably to play for the Knicks) and every other team in the league knows it. As such the rest of the teams in the NBA are going to low-ball New Orleans because they know the Hornets don't have much bargaining leverage. You know, one of the reasons the NBA was locked out all summer was because the small-market teams like the Hornets were tired of not having enough money to keep their superstars on their teams and they wanted to stop every good player from ending up on the same 8 or 9 teams. After a nearly 200-day lockout it sure as hell doesn't look like much as changed. Man, and I thought the lockout was useless before...

-After getting benched six games into the season, Vikings quarterback Donovan McNabb asked for and was granted a release from the team late in the week. He went unclaimed through the NFL's waiver process and is now free to sign with any team he wants. Personally, I'm not sure how many teams want McNabb. Sure, he was good in the early 2000s, but that sure feels like a long time ago right about now. However, you wouldn't be able to tell that from the talking heads on ESPN. You see, every couple of years the network brings in a fresh crop of former players for fresh faces and perspectives. Where it gets weird is when those former players have to talk about guys they used to either play against or be teammates with. At that point you can tell they are just basing all their opinions on what they used to see on the field. For example Hugh Douglas, who used to play with McNabb in Philadelphia, was on TV the other day talking about how teams would be smart to sign Donovan because McNabb has such a strong arm. Are we talking about the same Donovan McNabb who I've watch one-hop 20-yard passes for the last 2 seasons? It might be time for some of these analysts to get back into the film room, because with opinions like that it sure seems like they aren't paying attention.

-If there was ever any doubt whether or not Tiger Woods was still the most influential golfer on the planet, look no further than this weekend's Chevron World Challenge. It's an 18 man field (very exclusive), doesn't count in the standing at all but hands out a lot of prize money and thus it's pretty much the very example of the rich getting richer. Now, normally it would barely be worth a mention. But, Tiger came out Thursday afternoon and put together a very nice round, tying for second place. On ESPN there was not a single mention of the guy who was actually in the lead, but there were two stories about Tiger's shoes. You see, Tiger started out the day wearing white shoes, but was wearing black shoes after the 9th hole. The announcers spent the remaining part of the day wondering if it the change was due to conditions, or perhaps pain in his knee, or maybe the spikes were different. Good God, we needed to know: what was going on with Tiger's shoes!?!?!? Well, turns out he broke a lace and thought it would be faster to change shoes than re-lace the ones he was wearing. Mystery solved and much ado about nothing. It's been said before and it needs to be said again: Tiger doesn't move the needle, Tiger is the needle.

-All of the realignment that has been going on in college athletics for the passed couple of years is due to one thing: conferences trying to get Championship Games. Every school in a conference gets a nice chunk of TV money when they have a Conference Championship to televise, so the various leagues have spent the last couple of years collecting enough teams from other places to create two divisions and have their own conference championship. Well, this is the first year for the Pac-12 Conference Championship. It happened last night and it pitted #9 Oregon against a 6-6 and unranked UCLA squad. You see, thanks to USC being under NCAA sanctions they were ineligible for the conference championship, so UCLA ended up winning the division by default. The same UCLA who lost by 50 points to USC last week and subsequently fired their coach. The same UCLA who wasn't going to play the game unless they got a special waiver from the NCAA saying they would still be bowl eligible at 6-7 because they knew they were going to get wasted, thus have a losing record and you need to be at least .500 to play in a bowl. Not exactly the game you would want for your first conference championship. So it was hardly surprising that when the game was played last night Oregon blew the doors of UCLA in a contest that was neither very close nor very interesting. My point in all this? Beware what you wish for.

You Need A Cooler Car

A recurring theme on this blog is that every guy out there is currently starring in an action movie in his own mind. It's not totally our fault - it is the product of a youth spent watching movies like "Die Hard" every weekend. If you see a guy in line, rest assured in his mind he is currently figuring out a plan of action should terrorists decide to take over this particular sub shop. Nowhere is this action hero mentality clearer then when we are behind the wheel of our cars. It doesn't actually matter where we are going, we're thinking that it is vital we get their quickly. When you see a guy weaving in and out of traffic you may think he's just being an overly-aggressive driver, but in his mind he's trying to get to the President before a bomb goes off.

This afternoon I was driving in front of exactly this type of action star wannabe. As he was weaving his car in and out of traffic, even cutting into the quasi-breakdown lane to pass several cars on the right, he made it abundantly clear he was in a hurry. Though, once I got a look at him I never would have thought he had anywhere to go. Besides that, there was another huge flaw in his action-star fantasy: he was driving a Buick. No action star drives a Buick. My parents had a Buick. In fact he had the same kind of Buick that my parents used to drive and I know this because after he passed me but before I could even see the decal on the back of the car I could see the clock clearly. The huge clock display is a clear sign of any Buick.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about a few other things or vehicles that should immediately put a stop to any action-star fantasy. I know people can have very active imaginations, but there are some things even the best mind can't overcome.

-The car is pre-2000, but post-1980: Let's be honest with each other - the 80s and 90s were not a good time for car makers. There were very few iconic cars put out during this period. If you are going to drive an older car, it should least be a classic. Would you ever seen an action star driving a 1996 Ford Taurus?

-Different color panels: I know that some times action movies start with the hero down on his luck, driving a POS. Admittedly, you can overcome this if you happen to be a particularly good looking man. It would be easier if you were driving an Audi.

-Bumper stickers: Hey, sometimes bumper stickers can't be helped. If the car is being passed down through the family (and you could easily make the case that hand-me-down cars are an automatic action star disqualifier), there are going to be a few stickers you may not agree with: schools you didn't go to, mountains you never skied, children that are no longer student of the month at an elementary school. But if you want to be bad-ass you have to scrape them off. Otherwise you are just going to kill your bad-ass mojo before it even starts.

So, there you go - just a couple of the things that should bring any action-star fantasy to a halt immediately. If any of these things apply to your mode of transportation I'm going to have to ask that you cool it with the aggressive driving and come back to reality. At least until you find yourself on line at the bank. At that point, feel free to be on the lookout for bad guys.

The Importance Of Wish Lists

Right after Thanksgiving, people start on me about what I want for Christmas. While I admit this is hardly a bad problem to have, it is still awkward. First off, I hate asking people to buy me stuff. The way I figure it, if I haven't already bought it for myself than I probably don't need it. Also, is there any way to fill out a Christmas wish list without feeling like a complete and total brat? Because it really doesn't feel like it. Seriously, try and hand people a long list of things for them to buy for you without feeling like Veruca Salt from "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory". Can't be done. What makes this so ironic is that I often like it when people make gifts lists, because I usually need help coming up with ideas for people. When I don't have a list to work off of, that is when bad things happen.

The other day I was doing some pre-Christmas shopping scouting. I do this every year - check out a few stores and hope that inspiration strikes. I don't always end up getting the person the exact thing I see, but hopefully it will at least set me on the right path. From there I can go home and do a little more research about a product and see if I can get a better deal online. And, on occasion, it has shown me exactly what I won't be buying someone, which can be just as handy. It is when inspiration doesn't strike me that I start to get a little worried and my gift-buying can go a little sideways.

While out on my little scouting excursion I had a very specific person in mind. And so far this holiday season I have been drawing a blank as to what I could possibly get them for a gift. But, I found myself in a large store that was having an even larger sale. At one point I looked to my right and saw that one thing they seemed to be pushing were bread makers. Now, my friend has no need for a bread maker. I don't think he's ever told me he wants to make bread and I'm not even sure he would know where to begin in the bread making process. However in that moment with no other gift possibilities coming to mind, I began to talk myself into getting him a bread maker.

I mean, I know he eats bread. Maybe he would appreciate the chance to make it himself. It could be a learning experience. Frankly, he might appreciate the chance to learn a new skill. He's never tried it - what if he loves it? Then I'm the hero for introducing him to the wonderful world of bread making. And think of all the money he could save if he didn't have to buy bread every couple of weeks. Not only would this gift be a new hobby, but it would be financially smart as well. This would be the gift that kept on giving. This could be the best gift ever!

I'm fairly convinced that the simple lack of a better idea has led to 95% of all bread maker purchases. Fortunately for my friend I talked myself out of this gift just as quickly as I talked myself into it. But, see, this is what happens when you don't tell people what you want for a gift. They sit there and start talking themselves into random items for no other reason than they can't think of anything better. So, as awkward as you may feel having to sit down and make out a wish list this holiday season, just know that anyone who wants to get you a gift appreciates it. It's either that, or start practicing your surprised face so they won't be disappointed at your reaction to your brand new bread maker.