Whatever is cool with me.

Can you imagine if we had flying cars right now? We’d be totally screwed. People drive like morons with 4 wheels on the ground, I shudder to think how they’d behave in the air. Every damn time it rains or snows…You know what, I take that back. It doesn’t matter what the weather is. People just drive like idiots. I count my blessings every day that we don’t live like the Jetsons. People can’t contend with other cars, potholes, or animals on the roads can you imagine what they’d do if they had to deal with birds?

For the sake of mankind, people, please abandon the idea of flying cars. Maybe in a few hundred years after we can master four wheels on the ground but until then don’t even think about it.

I don’t normally talk much about work because, well I’m careful of what I say about all things work related. Let me preface what I’m about to write by saying I like my job. I like what I do and the people that I do it for. Recently my boss gave notice that he’s quitting. Great, good for him on to greener pastures. I wish him all the best. What’s got me down is the way the powers that be handled all the work he was doing. They passed it off to other departments. Sales/Marketing got the website work, other departments at other offices (which shall remain nameless) are handling the support of our ERP system. The only thing I got handed was dealing with the company cell phone accounts.

Ok, I really don’t know if I wanted all the extra work but it’s work that I expected to have to deal with. Granted there would be a learning curve for me with the ERP system but it’s a task I would have taken on. Let me be perfectly clear, there’s nothing wrong with anything that happened but I’ll say that I more or less feel like someone didn’t think I could do it all. I should be relieved but I’m not, I’m a glutton for punishment as they say. The other thing that had really occurred to me is, if all of the stuff my boss was doing could be so easily farmed out to other departments then why did I really need a boss? Did the IT department really need a director? Who knows. I’m certain there’s a few times in my history here that I was definitely glad I wasn’t him.

Friday is his last day and everyone is going to miss him. We’re having pizza for lunch so I hope they get one with pepperoni and pineapple.

Finish the fight!

That’s the tag line for Halo 3. Much like every other geek I spent last night hovering in line around my local game retailer. The head count turned out to be around 150 people. The shop was pre-ringing people at 9 pm-ish which meant, have your ID and reciept ready, go in the store and get your final reciept then stand in another line til 12:01 where you’re ushered into the store to get your stuff and leave.

The game shop crew was all decked out in camo. The shop manager is a Marine (once a Marine always a Marine) so he was in full uniform. At first it looked like the Army was there doing security until you got close enough to see who they were. The manager had some swag to give out for answering trivia questions so he was tossing out gift cards, xbox pens, and lanyards and expensive kits of hair product from the salon nextdoor. I personally won a bag of the hair product which is apparently like 50 dollars with of kit.

At around 12:30 I was out of there. David and I made a quick stop at the house of Wal to see if we could snag some of the Halo 3 dogtags they were handing out with pre-orders. No dice. They would only give them away with a game. I’m tempted to buy the game from them and then return it and put the money back in my bank account.

By the way, I have the legendary edition. I’ll be unboxing it tonight.

So, I read. A lot. It really doesn’t matter what I’m reading just as long as it hold my attention and lately I’ve been doing a lot of my reading online. One of my favorite things lately is consumer blog www.consumerist.com. There’s been a recent trend in people refusing to let the receipt checkers at retail stores check their receipts and paw through their purchases and the results have been less than comical. You can check out the stories HERE

Now, people have been pulling this “not gonna show my receipt” stuff everywhere and there are different opinions on it and here’s a list of facts and observations that I’ve come up with.

1. Do you have to show your receipt? No.

2. Will it start a shit storm? Maybe.

3. Can the store detain you for shoplifting if you don’t show your receipt? No. The fact is until you denied them the request of showing the door man your sales slip, they had no reason to suspect you of shoplifting. I.E they did not have probable cause to detain you.

4. Can I call the cops? Yes, you can call the cops. Aside from showing your receipt this is probably the only way the store is going to let you go. You can also try to press charges but that’s been tried before and it failed miserably. Personally I’d like to see someone succeed.

5. This whole train of thought derails at someplace like Sam’s club or Costco where you have a membership. Apparently in your membership agreement you agree to let them check your sales slip before leaving.

However, just because you are a member doesn’t give them the right to detain you. Under all circumstances being detained without good faith that you are stealing is illegal. What places like Sam’s and Costco can do is revoke your membership for refusing to follow their rules. Big freaking deal as far as I’m concerned. Take your ball and go away.

For those of you nuts that cite privacy as the reason for not showing your receipt, you’re losers. The flunky at the register already saw everything you bought and it was scanned into some corporate database to track shopping patterns anyway. That’s why they ask for your zip code or area code or phone number or whatever now. Your privacy has already been invaded.

What we do have at certain places is a giant inconvenience. When there’s a huge line just to pretend to check a receipt and it takes you more than 20 seconds to get out the door, I feel you should by all means blow right by the receipt checker. I also feel that if the store is going to use the “we’re doing it to prevent shrinkage” line as an excuse to raid my bags, they damn well better check everything in the bag even if I have 400 items because it sure is easy for something to slip through those 400 items making it 401 or whatever.

By the way IANAL. This is just me calling it as I see it.

We’re going to the cruise-in in Auburn tonight. Basically what a cruise-in is, is where people drive their classic cars, muscle cars, or otherwise unique vehicles through the center of a town (Auburn in this case) and then park along the main street for all to see. As you may or may not know, I love muscle cars. Particularly the Ford Mustang. Usually at these things there’s quite a few different Mustang’s and I’ll be out with my camera to get a photo or two.

For some reason I’m enthralled with the Mustang. They have a look about them that just SCREAMS tough and personifies freedom. My favorite Mustangs would be the ‘67 GT 500, ‘69/’70 Mach1, and the 1969 Boss Mustang.

Despite my enthusiasm for these cars I seem destined never to own one. These cars, in good condition and drivable usually cost a small fortune and to get one in any shape that my mechanical skills would allow me to repair one is only prohibited by lack of time and available work space.

Having lamented my tale, if you’d like to contribute to my cause (getting a Mustang) you can e-mail me or leave a comment with your e-mail address and we can work something out.