Plan “B” Is My Plan “A”

Remember yesterday’s plan? Remember “I drive so that I can leave early”? Did you know that I had a 6pm haircut appointment that I didn’t make last night? (Spare me your “You can’t polish a turd” snarky remarks…)

After leaving work at 6:15pm, stopping at Edgewood Retail District, and swinging by Slice in Glenwood Park for dinner (Thai chicken pizza still fucking rocks!), I was home by 8-8:30pm. My taxes must wait until another night…

Plan “B” Is My Plan “A”
This was a slogan in a magazine that I read yesterday. Good Magazine is the sort of magazine that appeals to faux-environmentalists such as myself. In the magazine are articles about alternative transportation plans implemented by forward-thinking cities which do not exist in this country, articles about companies who doing right by the environment as well as those that are pretending to do so, etc.

I will be plucking a few of the links included on the pages of the magazine in the near future.

What’s A Dollar Worth To You?
For the past seven days money has been the main focus of my life. (Is has even temporarily displaced my disgust with my physique). It is no coincidence that this has occurred since I prepared my taxes last week.

Yesterday while I was in Barnes & Nobel I purchased one of the iconic possessions of the Hipster Dufus — a Moleskine notepad. I have looked at these often in the past and have hemmed and hawed over purchasing one because of the $6.95 price tag (it is just a goddamn blank bound notepad, you know). Yesterday I decided to perform a little “retail therapy” and finally buy one.

When I pulled it out of the bag this morning I noticed on the receipt that I was charged $7.95.

My question for you is this — Would you return to the store (or to the store which resides across the street from your office) to complain and have the dollar refunded, or would you just suck it up and move on taking this a lesson to check the receipt immediately?

And Some More Questions
– Why are audio books so damn expensive?
– Why is Microsoft so arrogant / insecure that they consistently reset my default browser to Internet Explorer when they download monthly patches? I have chosen not to use your piece of shit Microsoft, deal with it and leave my setting alone.
– What is your favorite source for finding out information for cities you have never visited?

ITP Flickr Pic Screenshot
Google Ads, sometimes they are the source of amusement and sometimes they make me ask the question WTF?

WTF?

I stared at the email I received which prompted these ads to be chosen and I could not figure out the connection at all.

Haute Cuisine I Ain’t Never Heard Of
I used to pride myself on what was happening in Atlanta’s restaurant scene. Somewhere along the way I lost track. I could bore you with theory, but instead I will move on.

While watching Iron Chef America the other night I found out that there was a Southeast Iron Chef America contest, and that the winner was from one of the many Atlanta restaurants of which I have never heard. On Iron Chef America last week the challenging chef was, Linton Hopkins, who is the chef at Atlanta’s Restaurant Eugene. I admit to have never hearing about this restaurant previously, and that I am not intrigued to try it.

Iron Chef America spoiler — Iron Chef Morimoto beat Chef Hopkins quite handily.

Because Of “Big D” I Must Switch To Plan “B”
Yesterday I was informed that I might be traveling to Dallas (the one in Texas) in a few weeks for business. While I am happy to go (the last time I was in Dallas for anything other than a transfer at DFW was the same year I saw the Grand Canyon — 1972) to Dallas it will mean the rescheduling of another trip I had planned.

Want to know where I was going instead? Promise not to laugh? I was planning on going to Montgomery Alabama to attend a Montgomery Biscuits baseball game during the weekend I will be traveling for work instead. Hey, you promised that you weren’t going to laugh.

Seriously, ever since a few years ago when I first heard that Montgomery had a team called the “Biscuits” I’ve wanted to attend one of their games. I had the weekend planned and had almost booked a hotel room as well. It’s a good thing that I procrastinated on this one. Look for a future announcement of a Montgomery trip sometime this Summer. I swear that this will be the year I make it to a Biscuits game.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood – meh
Current Music – Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing The Beta Band — “Dry The Rain”
Website Of The Day – Continuing Paulie’s World of Bizarre Literature, I present to you Post-It Note Stories.
Exercise (b)Log – not a thing
Mode Of Transportation To Work – My car

April Goals
1) Lose two pounds. (starting weight 202 lbs?)
2) Run no fewer than thirty miles.
3) Do twenty push-ups and fifty sit-ups at on Monday, Wednesday and Saturdays.
4) Read three books, specifically
4a) “722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York”
4b) “Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job”
4c) “50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques”
5) Take Marta to work at least ten times.
6) File my Income Taxes. (since they are due in two weeks I better get this done)
7) Wear “nicer” clothes to work at least one day a week.
8\) Cook dinner at home at least two nights a week.

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

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16 Responses to Plan “B” Is My Plan “A”

  1. Stacy says:

    Not only will I not laugh, but I will admit that I, too, have desired to see the Biscuits play. Mainly because that is the gosh darn funniest (and probably tastiest) mascot ever! (But your link isn’t working; fyi) Anything with butter is good in my book. :*)

    I would take the book back and get my dollar (or, what? dollar and seven cents with tax?). When you do, make sure you talk to the manager, not a cashier, about how inconvenient it was as well — especially if you don’t often get to that store and had to make a special trip back. If things ring up wrong in the grocery, you get it for free…that should happen here as well! Okay, okay, I know that won’t happen…but, seriously, the cashier should have double checked that and for frustration factor alone, they should take it back and then “resell” it to you at a discount.

    For nothing more than curiosity’s sake, I say do it and tell us how they treated you. Do it for your readers!

  2. Paulie [eatl/ga] says:

    As it turns out I will be returning the book regardless because I wound up buying the wrong thing. I bought a three-pack of mini-books and not one larger book. I’ll let them know about the pricing problem as well.

    Thanks for the notification about the broken link. I missed a double-quote in the tag. It should be all good now.

  3. Steve says:

    I think a road trip to Montgomery for the Biscuits and then on to Columbus for the Catfish. I’ve been to a game in Columbus. I think I might have paid $5 for a seat right behind home plate.

    So let me get this straight.. you paid $7.95 for something you didn’t want and now you want to complain the retailer made a mistake? I think not…

    -FP

  4. Stacy says:

    Would catfish eat biscuits? I’m guessing yes.

  5. Paulie [eatl/ga] says:

    I paid $7.95 for something that is clearly marked $6.95. The fact that I realized that I purchased the wrong thing is irrelevant except that it means that I will be returning the item regardless its price.

  6. Paulie [eatl/ga] says:

    I think catfish eat everything. I’d like to start a campaign to give catfish the slogan “Catfish — The goat of the sea”

  7. Elizabeth says:

    I use Audible.com for audiobooks – I think I pay $10 a month for one book and one subscription, but you can also purchase single books from them.

    Granted, I’ll probably never be able to completely catch up on the backlog of audiobooks I’ve got now, but every few months I pick one with the intention of putting it on CD for a present for a family member.

  8. Elizabeth says:

    FYI – I just sent you an offer for a 14 day free trial at Audible (two free downloads, basically) to the itpblogbox e-mail address.

  9. Paulie [eatl/ga] says:

    Thanks! I’ll give it a shot.

  10. Barb says:

    If you ever get to Iowa, there is the Cedar Rapids Kernels. When they changed their logo to one with a baseball coming out of an ear of corn, I think they sold 1000% more souvenirs. Mt favorite team name is still the Macon Whoopies. Their 1 night stand group deal was the best, a keg of beer and you get to sit almost on the ice in a concession stand.
    I’m with ya, since you need to go back, bitch about the price.
    Hey – have a heart attack everyone, I’m going to go to George’s tonight! Not to run of course…. just to socialize.

  11. Oliver says:

    Try having Microsoft changing the settings on 30 computers, and having to go write and publish a Group Policy Object in order to switch it back. Also, releasing an unscheduled patch for exploited (and published) security holes makes my job more *fun* Those crazy bastards.

  12. Hello Kitty Fan says:

    Chattanooga have a minor league team called “The Lookouts”. Personally, I prefer “The Biscuits”. It sounds better and I like to eat them. I like to eat catfish too.

  13. Max says:

    I’ve been to a Biscuits game (I used to live in Auburn, so it was just a quick trip down the interstate for me) and they are fun, even for folks like me who think baseball is kinda boring. They shoot biscuits into the crowd! It’s genius.

    (The mascot, unfortunately, is NOT a giant biscuit, but rather a generic fuzzy monster guy named “Big Mo.” Make up your own joke here–GOd knows I did.)

  14. Paulie [eatl/ga] says:

    They shoot biscuits into the crowd?!?! I am so fucking there this summer!

  15. Stacy says:

    Huh. Why wouldn’t they make their logo their mascot? It’s the cutest thing evah!

    Paulie, you let me know when you go and I’ll road trip with ya. Stopping for breakfast biscuits on the way, of course.

  16. Paulie [eatl/ga] says:

    I’ll keep you informed.

    I agree with you that their logo should be their mascot. That biscuit is Awesome!

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