Month: December 2003

I thought the free clip of the Paris Hilton video I ran across was OK, but when I tried to watch The Simple Life, I lost all respect for her. See, I’d really hoped that she and Ms. Richie would take it seriously and really try to show that they could do something, but the segment I saw where they ‘worked’ at a Dairy Farm was obviously a farce set up to act as a backdrop for them to stand in front of as eye-candy with a bad attitude.

Of course, it just so happened the dairy farmer had a hot tub in the back yard, and they had their bikinis with them. Yeah, right, whatever.

I hope they didn’t really sell anyone the milk they watered down with hose water from a 5-gallon slop bucket!

The big surprise TV-wise this week was a special ‘Home Edition’ of Extreme Makeover, where they sent a family to the Bahamas for a week and completely gutted and remodeled their house. It was a great show!

See, it’s stuff like this where a woman get’s trampled in a Wal-Mart over a $29 DVD player (do we live in the future or what?) that makes me think there may just be something to this: Adbusters: Buy Nothing Day.

I went through the ‘self-service’ line at Albertson’s tonight for the second time, and I think this is really where we’re headed. I’m usually buying beer, so it’s a little bit of a hassle that someone has to verify that I’m an old guy, but other than that, this is the way to go. I’ll be really surprised if there isn’t a huge backlash from the unions. More info: NCR FastLane™ : Self-Serve Cash Register.

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I spent some time today finishing up our Christmas lights, which I started yesterday. When I was going through the line at True Value Hardware to buy a power strip and an extension cord, the woman in front of me had an axe with the handle broken right below the head, and that sent me into a reverie.

You see, one of my earliest jobs was as a singing busboy at Black Bart’s Steakhouse & Dinner Theater in Flagstaff, AZ, back when I was a young pup goin’ to Northern Arizona University.

I’d get there right after school, and I’d vacuum the whole place, then I had to go out back and split firewood for the big double-sided fireplace that opened onto the bar and the restaurant.

As I told the checkout clerk at True Value, the management was pretty upset when I broke the axe handle the second time.

My other main memories of the ‘Singing Busboy’ period are having to buy several white shirts and a used iron, and the fact that Black Bart’s served deep fried ice cream.