Sunday, July 17, 2005

The Misanthrope – Sunday’s Lighter Side

It is the overtakers who keep the undertakers busy.
William Ewart Pitts, British policeman

Coffee and a CD to Go. Starbucks is becoming the new record store because of all its outlets around the country, almost 7,000 outlets in the United States and approximately 3,000 internationally. Now, if you are a world famous musician where are you going to want to have your CD available for sale? Duh! Starbucks. However, as a consumer where do you want to buy your CDs? Not at Starbucks.

Carole King’s new live CD The Living Room Tour looked mildly interesting since I never purchased her gazillion-selling Tapestry album or CD. Starbucks had the CD listed for $17.99, but Target, the department store, had the same CD for $11.99. It’s a no brainer.

As far as the music on the CD is concerned, it’s okay, not great. I have a hard time with silly chatter on a live CD because you have to hear the same thing repeatedly each time you listen to it. But, even worse is disingenuous chatter, such as “Sing with me. Oh, I have goose bums.” Please. Frankly, there is far too much audience participation on the CD. If I wanted to hear choir music, I would buy the Moron Tabernacle, which I could never imagine doing in this lifetime. My recommendation: do not buy.

Post Vacation Blues. It’s so hard to go back to work after living what should be a normal life for two weeks. I wonder if it’s harder for the teachers and professors to go back after 60 plus days off? Thankfully it was a rather slow week, which has allowed me to gear up for the onslaught to come. Maybe there is some prayer chain we can start to help me win the lotto. Once I win, I will gladly help with your prayer chain, hell, I will even hire people to help pray for you.

Traffic. There was not a single day this week that I was not blowing the horn at some &%$#. Thursday, I had gotten off the freeway to buy gas in the San Fernando Valley where it is about 10 cents a gallon cheaper then in my little suburb, when I started to get on the freeway on ramp, going up the two lanes narrowed that merge into one, this $%*^&%^$#*%& sharply cut me off. Unfortunately for my mother, she was on the phone with me when I blurted out my very spirited language. I quickly told her I would call her back and the damn road rage game was on. I got around him and kept him from changing into the lane he wanted. Then he got around me and did a little swerve in my direction. I was going to let it go, but the little jerk in the big four by four looked too satisfied with himself. So, I got on his bumper, pretended to take a picture of his license plate with my cell phone, and acted as if I were text messaging it to somewhere. He was flipping me off and I could see his mouth moving a mile a minute. That pretty much ended the situation until I had to have the last word and went around him and cut him off.

I have been trying very hard to practice what I call Zen driving and not to get into this crap for many obvious reasons such as in Los Angeles guns are as accessible as soda pop, so you never know who’s packing. It’s also just stupid. I would not be the least bit interested in hurting someone, if we pulled over, and even less interested in getting hurt, which would most likely be the case. I am going to once again attempt to allow idiots their space and not get angry or try to teach anyone manners.

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