December 2009

Marlborough, Mass.



Tree., originally uploaded by iMachias.

We are in Marlborough, Mass. for the night. It is our annual “get away from the regular mall” holiday shopping excursion. Every year Earl and I go to a mall that we are unfamiliar with to knock out the bulk of our shopping list. Even though the stores are usually the same as what we have in our general area, the different scenery and such makes for a fresh look on things that we see on a regular basis back at home. The mall of our choice this year was originally going to be in Hagerstown, Maryland, but we didn’t find any excitement to head in that direction so we opted for the Natick Collection in Natick, Mass. instead. We are staying in Marlborough because I’m very familiar with this area and Earl has spent the night in this hotel before.

The Natick Collection is part of the old Natick Mall. I used to go to Natick Mall back in the late 80s to eat at York Steak House; it has changed considerably in the past 20 years. The Natick Collection is quite nice and on the upscale side. There was a nice blend of people shopping and the mall wasn’t so packed to be uncomfortable but it was busy enough to keep it interesting.

We decided to buy a netbook but didn’t find any store selling them at the mall so we went to a nearby Best Buy in Framingham. We found a really nice one on sale for $249.99. When we went to the checkout, it ended up ringing for $299.99 with an additional charge for $140.00. The additional charge was a courtesy fee because “The Geek Squad” had wiped out all the software that came preinstalled on the netbook and had brought it back to the bare bones.

This fee wasn’t mentioned anywhere on the signage around the netbook.

For $439 we could buy a decent computer if we wanted to, so we decided to opt out of the purchase and headed back to the display to find a netbook that hadn’t been modified by The Geek Squad. All of a sudden all the customer service people swarming around the computer department came up missing and no one seemed like they wanted to help, so we said screw the deal and left empty handed.

Last week I tweeted that the Ithaca, N.Y. Best Buy gave me the best Best Buy experience ever. Their evil twin store is in Framingham, Mass. Major suckage.

We didn’t let the bad Best Buy experience ruin the day. It has been a great shopping experience and day all in all. Mother Nature is giving us some snow to make it all festive tonight. I forgot how amusing it is to watch folks in this area drive in the snow. They go slow but they’re not unreasonable.

A stop at the fairly new P.F. Chang’s topped off the experience on a pleasant note. All in all it has been a very good day.

5 December 2009 by Fun and Games Dept 1

Perky.

I decided at lunch time that I had enough of feeling a little ‘blah’ today so I pepped myself up with this…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I LOVE LAUREN! (and dig the groovy guest stars in this one!)

4 December 2009 by Fun and Games Dept Geek 1

Jingle Bells.

The holiday season is in full swing and naturally folks are out buying a bunch of stuff at Crazy Eddie’s unbelievably low prices in an effort to make their loved ones happy and buy their way back to good graces after being mean as hell the rest of the year.

How’s THAT for gaiety!

I made a public declaration that I want little for Christmas this year, yet I want to shower others with gifts. I surpassed my allotted budget days ago and it’s only the 3rd. I just started shopping on the 1st. Perhaps I’m trying to make up for being mean as hell or something.

One of the things that makes me insane about this time of year is being forced to listen to Christmas music. I want to enjoy the soothing sounds of the holiday on my own terms. My mother used to crank up an album she had picked up at Grants or Two Guys; I think it was called “The White Family Christmas”. I have to admit I used to enjoy that album when I was a kid, even through the tiny speakers on the GE Wildcat record player. I liked the fact that we would listen when we were in the mood to listen.

The Big.Thing. in this area is for radio stations to go to all Christmas music in an effort to boost ratings increase ad revenue bring joy and merriment to the masses. (Don’t ever believe that commercial radio stations are there to entertain the public, it’s just another industry that has been perverted into a sole money maker and nothing more). Anyways, if I don’t plug in my iPhone when I get in the car, I can either listen to: NPR, all country Christmas music, all Christmas music that is lite and easy or all Christmas music that is fast and peppy. Well, there’s always death metal or a wide array of “you’re going to die and go to hell” Christian stations to choose from, so I guess I’m blessed to have choices. I usually settle on NPR.

At work someone wise decided that we needed the radio station of their choice pumped through the no-fidelity intercom speakers. The station of choice is the lite and easy station, which plays “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” every day on the 30th minute of a given hour, which will be followed up with “Hold On” by Wilson Philips 45 minutes later, which will be followed by Cher and “Believe” exactly 37 minutes later. All of this is interspersed with Huey Lewis and the News and heaping helpings of Sheena Easton. She takes the morning train. To maintain my sanity, I bought a raffle ticket for a Remington 30-06 with scope so that I can shoot out the speaker.

On December 1, Sheena, Huey and friends were retired for continuous Christmas and holiday music. It is now December 3 and I’m now hoping that I win the gun instead of using my luck to win the lottery. I don’t think that this season of peace should involve the hopes of winning a gun in a raffle but I’m desperate.

I really just want some peace.

3 December 2009 by Why. 2

Glee.

I am worried that with this blog entry I am going to lose my membership card to The Ghey but I can not deny my feelings any longer.

I don’t really enjoy “Glee”.

I didn’t watch the first few episodes of the show. It took a couple of weeks for Earl to convince me that the show was worth watching. So one night I sat down and tried to sit through the episode without glancing at my iPhone or hauling my laptop up onto my lap. I survived the struggle but I didn’t really enjoy the experience. I decided to give it another week.

Again, I survived the struggle but I didn’t really enjoy the experience.

There are a few reasons as to why I don’t enjoy watching the show. First of all, I think that they need to ramp back Sue Sylvester’s hatred a little bit. I love watching Jane Lynch do her thing in just about any role she has appeared in but I have to admit that she actually frightens me as Sue Sylvester. Watching her makes me heart fall into my stomach. I don’t enjoy the experience of seeing her character on the screen. Perhaps it’s routed in some purposely forgotten experience from my middle or high school years but I just don’t enjoy her hatred, and the comedy involved with that hatred, for the Glee club at all.

Don’t even get me started on the fake pregnancy thing. I was so happy to see that storyline go away tonight that I almost said a little cheer. Not a fan.

Earl tells me how much he enjoys the performances on the show and I have to say that I have only enjoyed three performances out of the entire season thus far: “Defying Gravity”, “Jump” and “Say A Little Prayer”, and honestly I only enjoyed “…Prayer” after I saw the bears do it on YouTube.  The “Defying Gravity” performance was really good and I had fun during “Jump” but the rest of the performances smack of mediocrity for me. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to performance, heck I have never enjoyed my own performances in my 41 years of trying, but when numbers are performed on “Glee” all I hear is a lot of autotune. I think I would enjoy the performances more if they were real. I know the actors can sing (for the most part), I don’t know why we have to electronically enhance them. All I can hear is that damn autotune.

I keep hearing how dreamy Mr. Schuester is, and I will admit that he is rather attractive but I guess he’s not my type or something. I don’t swoon. I like to swoon when I’m watching a television show but he’s just doing it for me. Puck, on the other hand, comes closer to making me swoon and I was quite relieved to hear that he is closer to 30 than high school age.

Speaking of which, they have this whole Stockard Channing on Grease at 35 thing going on with some of the students, which is fine I guess, but knowing this kind of kills any attempts at realism for me.

So there you have it, I’m not a fan of “Glee”. It doesn’t inspire me to join a chorus nor do I feel the need to tweet breathlessly about the latest episode. Take my toaster points, take my membership to The Ghey but I speak only the truth.

2 December 2009 by Fun and Games Dept 1

Red.

Yesterday was World AIDS Day. Many websites were themed in red to commemorate the day. I was on a road trip and did not have the chance to mark this site the same way. I am slightly disappointed with myself over this.

As my friend dave tweeted:

“On this Worlds AIDS day, take time to remember those who have left us, and those that are still here to keep up the fight”

I couldn’t say it any better.

I have my Lenovo PC themed in PRODUCT (RED). The theme is carried over from when I bought the special edition of Windows Vista Ultimate PRODUCT (RED) a couple of years ago. I remarked back then that I liked the fact that Microsoft had a special edition of Windows Vista Ultimate out at the time and that I also appreciated that Dell had special editions of select computers that were also part of the project.

I wish Apple would do the same with a Mac. I know they have a couple of iPods in PRODUCT (RED), but I think it would be much better if they did the same with a Mac.

The debate still lingers in my head a year later. If I’m going to make a statement with my computer, it should be something that I believe in and something for the greater good. I want to make my impression *that* way.

2 December 2009 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Equality?

On the way home from work today I used my iPhone to dictate the following blog entry for transcription later on. I’m posting it as I said it to maintain the authenticity of my feelings on the subject of today’s New York State Senate vote on marriage equality.

Anyone that believes that the New York State government is for the people of the state of New York is under a sad misconception because that is not the case at all, as evidenced today by the New York State Senate’ decision to not pass legislation for Marriage Equality, extending marriage rights to ALL citizens of The Empire State. If put up for a public vote today, polls show that the over 50% of New Yorkers, both up and down state, would pass marriage equality. However, only 38% of the Senate voted that way. That is not a reflection of the will of the people and that’s what government is for, to represent their people. They are not representing the citizens of New York, they are representing their personal agenda. And because of this, New York State’s government, everyone in Albany from the governor all the way down, needs a complete overhaul. Everyone needs to be voted out and replaced. They’re not in it for our best interest, they’re in it for their own. They barely do anything and when they do, they screw it up.

I’m beg my fellow citizens of The Empire State to make smart decisions in 2010 and to start preparing for these big decisions today. Follow your local representatives and see what they’re about, learn about your state representatives and what they do and then vote with your heart, but more importantly vote with your mind on Election Day in 2010.

Marriage equality did not win today in New York State and that is very sad. This doesn’t negate, nullify or invalidate the undying love I have for my partner. It does, however, make me a second class citizen of the United States and of The Empire State. I question my relationship with anyone that knows the love I have for Earl and still believes that today’s state senate vote was a favorable one. Not only do I question anyone that believes that, I also have to say that I feel sorry for you.

As my e-mail jingled at me today at work, just moments after the vote:

Screen shot 2009-12-02 at 9.04.52 PM.png

2 December 2009 by Equality 1

Sticker.



303.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

Yesterday I received a small package in the mail. It was an ebay purchase as I had bought some classic Apple Computer stickers to add to my growing collection of all things Mac. There are four stickers in total.

I’m such a geek.

While I have a ton of the white Apple logo stickers around the house, as they come with just about every Apple product you purchase, these are the first of the older multi-colored logo. However, this is not the first time I have had a sticker like this.

In the summer of 1985 between my junior and senior years in high school I worked for the school district with a handful of other folks my age cleaning the school from top to bottom for the coming school year in the fall. It was one day that summer that we learned that one of my classmates had been killed. His name was Bobby. From what I remember he had passed out in the middle of the street, ironically between the volunteer ambulance corps and the local medical center, and had been fatally hit by a car. He had been drinking.

Back when I was in school students had the same locker from grade 7 through their senior year. I distinctly remember locker 710 (with the combination 48-4-42) being my home base at school for six years.

I was given the task of cleaning out Bobby’s locker so that it would be available for any new students joining us in the fall. Bobby came from a fairly well-off family and they had an Apple ][e. One of their Apple Computer stickers was in Bobby’s locker. Instead of peeling it off with the assigned sticker scraper, I carefully removed the sticker intact and transported it home, where I stuck it to my bedroom door. That sticker stayed on my door until the mid 1990s, when my folks removed it during some sort of remodeling project.

I haven’t thought about Bobby in years. We weren’t overly close in school but he was a nice enough guy with a wild streak and I thought he was good looking. He was one of the first in the class to sport a mustache. It’s funny that I didn’t remember any of this until my new stickers arrived yesterday.

1 December 2009 by Ponderings and Musings 1

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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December 2009
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