Whatever is cool with me.

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.

I feel so helpless and miserable right now. Today was the first time since my wedding day that I’ve spoken to my brother. Just to quickly rehash that, he along with my cousin and aunts walked out on my wedding before it was going to start. Up until today I had been upset with him for leaving, while thinking it was his idea the whole time when in reality it was the idea of my aunt. Naturally I feel terrible for letting all this time go by without speaking to him, it was wrong of me and if I could change things I absolutely would.

I talked to Nicky (he’ll always be little Nicky to me) for probably about an hour today and found out some really bad things have been going on in his life. When we were growing up living with our aunt she made it perfectly clear in no uncertain terms that she did not want us around and so recently she got her final wish; to rid herself of my brother.

It started out last winter according to what I’ve been told. While she was on vacation my uncle went batshit crazy and tore apart Nicky’s room, bruised him up pretty good and screamed at him about some nonsense. Fast-forward to July after a rocky several months my aunt decides that at 18 with no job, no other close family, no car, drivers license or money my brother should pack up his things and leave as he’s not her problem anymore. To make matters worse, she couldn’t even let him leave in peace. She followed him around the house, berating him while screaming obscenities. In a desperate move to get out as soon as possible he left everything except his clothes.

My brother has been staying with various friends but he doesn’t have a home or yet a job. I wonder how long the kindness of strangers will last.

How long has it been since you told a family member you love them? I sat and thought about that today after talking with my brother. I told him I love him and he was reciprocal. I thought long and hard about the last time I conveyed that emotion to my brother and I really couldn’t remember. After thinking about it nearly half of the day, it has to have been ten or more years since I said it. Honestly he had to be extremely young when last I told my brother that I love him.