Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Spock sings The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

You've got to be in a special mood to stand the length of this one, but if you're there, turn it up!



Now get on with your lives:

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Hey there little buddy!

Alan Hale Jr., aka The Skipper, and me.

I've got the concert stub for the Joshua Tree tour around here someplace...

Monday, December 5, 2011

Goodbye Walgreens, though I never did like you.

About a week and a half ago, while at work, I feel a bit of nose tingling, ear ache, and head compression; the beginnings of the common cold. I decide it best to make a visit to the nearest drugstore to get some zinc lozenges in the hopes it will minimize the illness over the then upcoming T-day weekend.

So the nearest place is Walgreens, definitely not my favorite place to visit, but it's close and I want something fast.  Walking into the door over the past several years I've noticed they have more candy on display than products to improve your  health.  This visit was no exception, with over abundant displays of chocolate and other candy filling the aisles, even spilling out between the aisles, blocking what would otherwise be space to walk more than one abreast.  I scurry past 'value packs' and bulk packages of candy, past a few aisle dividers with more of the same, get my lozenges, and head to the counter.

There is a line of four people in front of me and within 15-seconds I have three more people behind me with only the single register open - this is a big issue for me, but if I can cut the length of this cold by a few days, I'm staying put.  The petite young woman directly before me in line is checking out and I can hear but not see the clerk asking her if she wants to purchase any candy, I shit you not, like that's the main reason this woman came to the store and thanks so much for reminding her or she would have clearly forgotten and had to make the trip again.  The clerk then asks the woman if she wants to donate to the cure for diabetes.  The woman kindly declines both offers.

It's now my turn, I step up and can now see around the candy shelf on the counter that the clerk is indeed a morbidly obese woman who has to be at least 350, possibly pushing 400-pounds.  The clerk first and foremost asks me if I want any Reese's or Hershey's candy bars, as they are on sale, pointing to the display that was previously hiding her from my view.  I decline her offer of candy and say the lozenges are all I need.  The clerk then asks me if I want to donate a dollar to help find a cure for diabetes.  I sarcastically ask the woman if she sees the irony of the Walgreens corporation requiring her to push candy bars while at the same time trying to find a cure for diabetes, more than arguably caused by the saturation of sugar in our diets.  She isn't in a playful mood, not that I would be either, and our conversation is already over.  I don't blame the clerk, it's part of her job requirement and is surely "happy to have a job," which should be the slogan for the decade.

Shame on you Walgreens - seriously; you are sleazy, unethical, and just plain disrespectful of the human race.  Like I have any other choice anymore, after Walgreens has gone through and killed what was left of the locally owned drugstores, but I hold grudges, and this grudge says I'm not going back.

As far as the cold goes, I'm in the post-nasal drip induced coughing stage, which is doing a hell of a job keeping me up at night.

Schneider drug near the channel 5 tower is still open, hopefully for some time.