I should really be in bed right now. It's a little past midnight and I just finished packing. I've been running around all night trying to get ready to travel tomorrow morning.
After work I had to stop by Provo Town Centre to pick up some new clothes. They want us to wear "business casual" at Brainshare and I'm afraid that it's been a long time since I've worn anything but jeans and t-shirts to work. I was able to dig out and dust off some button-up shirts from my closet but even if I had pants that were nice enough to wear they probably wouldn't fit any more. When I moved into my house a year and a half ago I threw away all of my smaller clothes that I had been lugging around for years because I figured that I would never fit into them again.
I picked up three pair of dockers, a black belt (not karate related) and some colored socks. I spent way more time than I should have picking out the belt and the socks. At least I had a good excuse for the belt. I couldn't find the right size and style that I was looking for. I found the right size in a similar but wrong style and I was able to find the right style in the slightly wrong size. I was convinced that if I looked hard enough, just one more time, that the missing belt would suddenly materialize before me.
After a few dozen passes over the belt rack I thought up the bright idea of asking one of the sales associates to check the inventory on the computer. The computer, which never lies, told us that there were at least two of the exact belt that I was looking for in stock. Unfortunately that didn't make it any easier for us to find. Eventually I gave up and just bought a different, more expensive belt.
There was no excuse for the amount of time that I spent picking out the socks though. I used to have a female co-worker whose pet peeve was guys who would wear nice pants with plain white socks. She would go on and on about how stupid these fashion challenged individuals looked. Her ranting must have embedded itself deep within the dark recesses of my brain because now whenever I go shopping for socks to match nice pants (which, thank God, is not very often) I start to break out in a cold sweat wondering whether or not Carlene would be pleased with how I matched my socks to the pants that I am wearing.
The marathon started once I got home. After I ate dinner I decided that it would be a good idea to do all of my dishes so that my house wasn't rat infested by the time that I get home next week. Although, now that I think of it most of the dishes that I did tonight have already been sitting in my sink for nearly a week. Would it really have hurt that much to leave them there for another week? It wouldn't be the first time that I've had a two-week old sink full of dishes. I guess there is just something about coming home to a clean house after being away on a trip.
While I was doing my dishes I started my laundry. A couple of the dress shirts that I had dug out of my closet were way back from when I originally interviewed at Novell 4 years ago and it looked like I didn't bother to wash them before hanging them up in my closet. The sleeves were still rolled up and everything.
Of course after washing and drying all of my dress shirts I had no choice but to iron them as well. I felt dirty. I can't remember the last time that I had to dig my iron out of the closet. A sensible person probably wouldn't have bothered to iron a bunch of shirts before packing them in luggage. But, I wasn't sure whether or not there would be an iron at the hotel that I'm staying at and I figured that it would be better to have ironed shirts with a few fold marks from being packed than to look like I just pulled my shirts out of the dryer.
Somewhere in the process of doing my dishes and laundry it occurred to me that I forgot to get an adapter to plug my laptop into the European style electrical outlets. I actually had the opportunity to do so earlier in the afternoon when I stopped by Office Max but I just completely forgot about it. So, I made a late night run to K-Mart to try and find the converter.
K-Mart didn't have the converter and sent me packing to WalMart. I hate shopping at WalMart but I was desperate. If I didn't buy the converter tonight I would be stuck buying it at the airport for like quadruple the normal cost. Ironically WalMart had stocked the converters just a couple of days earlier but then all of the sudden the computer decided that they weren't selling and so it pulled them off the shelves and took them out of stock.
As I was walking out of the electronics department I couldn't resist the urge to look at the audio cd's as I walked by. I figured that if there were a group of people that were more evil than Walmart that it would have to be the RIAA. And if anybody deserves to get screwed by Walmart's lowballing tactics it is certainly the recording industry. So, I decided that I would reclaim some purpose to my trip to Walmart by buying some music (I know, shame on me).
I picked up two new CD's. Gorillaz', "Demon Days" and Kanye West's, "Late Registration". I would discover several hours later that it was actually me that got screwed in the end after all. I had accidentally picked up the "Clean Lyrics" version of "Late Registration". Walmart may not even sell the "Explicit Lyrics" version for all I know. I was pretty pissed when I found out. Not that I'm dying to hear a bunch of swearing, but I prefer to hear the album as the artist originally conceived it and not the watered down version meant to appease people with sensitive ears. I would return the CD but it will be at least a week until I will even have the opportunity and then I'm pretty sure that most places that sell music will not allow you to return or exchange anything that's been opened.
Wow, it's quarter to one now. My original plan was to wake up at 4:30 am so that I could work out before leaving. I'm not sure how well that plan is going to work now. I just hope that I don't accidentally sleep in and miss my flight. I guess that the best way to prevent that is to get my ass to bed. Good night!
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3 comments:
When Foxy J and I were at your house yesterday to reboot your server, we noticed the Kanye West album on your desk. I picked it up, knowing that you had surely already ripped it onto iTunes and that you surely wouldn't mind if I borrowed it. Then I said, "Oh, wait, I bet this is the explicit version." I am, as you know, one of those people with sensitive ears--though I don't mind hearing swearing now and then (or even producing some of my own for others to hear), I don't particularly like to hear the f-word over and over on music I listen to a lot. Especially now that I have a two-year-old who tends to repeat words she hears. I even said to Foxy, "If Svoid's going to buy rap, he might as well buy the edited version so he can give it to me after he rips it." At any rate, I still took the CD, figuring I'd like to hear it, explicit lyrics or no, and later when I have the money I'll buy the clean version for myself.
Then I put it in my car and realized it _is_ the clean version.
Moral of the story: Svoid's loss (and well earned, I might say, for shopping at Walmart in the first place) is Master Fob's score.
Seriously, I'll buy it from you and you can go out to a respectable music store and buy the album, naughty words and all. It's a good album.
By the way, I am _positive_ that I've seen you spell "pants" correctly before. Must be that Spanish influence.
Oh, and I have to admit, there is something to be said for listening to music the way an artist intended it to be. I've heard some edited songs where I couldn't even tell what they were saying because key words were missing. Other times, it's obvious what's missing, but a line can just lose it's strength by cutting that word out.
"Reality's a ----- and I heard that she bites."
--Common, "The Corner"
I am pretty embarrassed at my terrible spelling mistake. The funny thing is that I typed the post in a Word Processor first and it actually caught the spelling error. However, I was so certain that the spell checker was wrong that I didn´t bother to correct it. In my defense I´ve generally been writing these posts late at night (i.e. past 2 am) and after several hours of heavy drinking.
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