It’s been a couple years since I stepped foot into a Wal-Mart. Not since I lived in Springfield have I gone into one of those horrendous stores. I was out doing some Christmas shopping on Saturday and I needed to pick up some cold medicine. There was a Wal-Mart right next door to the place I was shopping at so I thought I’d save myself a trip to another store and pick some up here. As soon as I walked through the door, I knew that was a bad idea. There are always way too many people crammed into the stores. So, I dodge old ladies that don’t know how to walk, and weave between guys in camo jackets and NASCAR hats perusing the beef jerky and finally make it to the cold medicine aisle. I grab my medicine and work my way back up towards the registers, bobbing and weaving my way through narrow aisles, center displays filled with crap that I can see no one wanting. “Hey look! A camo colored Christmas bell with the words ‘Git Er Done’ painted on. Oooh, and is that a Chevy NASCAR tie clip?” Seriously, who buys this crap? Well, I get to the front of the store (which the cold medicine was only about 30 yards from the registers, but with all the people and crammed aisles, it takes forever to get anywhere in the store) and wait in line for 15 minutes. Why 15 minutes? Because Wal-Mart likes to have around 3 registers open during the busiest time of the year. Hell, why would they want to pay for more employees and cut in on their profit? Just make the suckers think they have to have the singing bass, 2nd edition and have them wait in line forever. Sell cheap crap to suckers and make a profit. God I hate this store. Call me elitist, call me a snob, or just call me sane. Wal-Mart is a crappy store. Shop Target.
St. Louis has always been a strong supporter of Sammy Hagar. His shows sell out here whenever he plays, the radio stations have always been friendly to him, and I’m sure he’s sold a great deal of records in the St. Louis area. That all may change thanks to his recent show where he revealed just how immature he really is. Before I continue I must state that the story I’m telling is not one I personally witnessed. I was not at his show, but what happened has brought up a heated discussion on radio shows and the internet. According to one fan, this is what happened:
About midway through his set Sammy hoisted a Miller beer and said it’s Miller Time !!!!!
The crows booed loudly, as you would expect in St. Louis.
Sammy then went off about how he went to the A.B. people and wanted to make a Cabo Wabo beer. But, A.B. turned him down and have decided to supposedly go with a Jimmy Buffet Beer-Tequila product instead.
So, Sammy blasted their decision, and said how he would NEVER drink an AB product, and would never serve Carona at Cabo again.
Then, he asked the A.B. employees in the audience to raise their hands, and then told them to go ask the A.B. people about the meeting.
The crowd’s frenzy was gone, and the love affair with Hagar was over for many.
He then mentioned it again a few songs later, and said he has already reserved a date to play Busch Stadium this summer. Although Sammy referred to it as “Miller Stadium.” Loud boos followed, which Sammy snickered at.
“We’re friends with Miller now.” he said defiantly. Several fans flipped the bird at the shows conclusion, and boos were heard among the applause.
Seriously, how immature can you be? Your concert is not a place to air out your grievances because a company didn’t want to do business with you. And, as anyone in St. Louis will tell you, coming into our city and talking bad about our beer is on the same level as going to Mecca and criticizing Islam or to Vatican City and criticizing Catholics. St. Louis is a proud city. We are proud of our city, our baseball and our beer. Talk smack on any of those things and you’ve declared war. Grow up Sammy.
I’m really fed up with Charter Communications. I’ve heard the horror stories of Comcast and even my experiences with Mediacom haven’t been that great, but Charter really gets under my skin. The past few days my 5mbit internet connection has been going really really slow. Painfully slow. I’ve run several speed tests on several different computers (a Windows Vista box, an Ubuntu box and my MacBook) and each time the speed registers at less than 1mbit. So, I’m paying over $40 per month for service that is only delivering less than 20% of what I’m supposed to be receiving? (Not to mention the fact that I’ve never gotten my whole 5mbit connection and most times it’s as if i pay for 5mbit but they only deliver 3). That doesn’t sound to fair to me. I’ve checked all the cable connections in the house to see if there might be a loose cable somewhere and haven’t found anything. So what do I do? If it doesn’t clear up on it’s own over the next couple days I will have to call and deal with an hour of a recorded voice telling me to power-cycle my modem, restart my computer, disconnect my router, stuff I’ve already done, then I’ll have to deal with the technician who will have me do the exact same things the recorded voice told me to do before they finally accept that it’s their problem and schedule an appointment to come look at it. Of course, I won’t be expecting to see an actual technician for at least 3 weeks after I set up the appointment, because that’s how Charter operates. It’s no surprise they’ve gotten a failing grade and thousands of complaints from the Better Business Bureau. So, you may be asking, why don’t I switch? The answer is simple; the Sherman Anti-Trust Act apparently doesn’t protect my city from giving a monopoly to Charter. There are no other cable companies or internet service providers (unless I want dial-up). The only high-speed net access is through Charter. I can’t wait for the day that AT&T comes into St. Peters and starts offering video and internet services. That will be a great day in the lives of many Charter Communications customers.
So this past weekend was Daylight Savings Time in the US. Many people claimed how happy they were that they got an extra hour of sleep. I say that’s BS. I didn’t get an extra hour of sleep. The clock fell back and hour and you know what I did? I woke up at 7 instead of 8. No extra hour of sleep there. I had my 7 hours of rest and that’s when my body told me to wake up. The spring is even worse, because you actually do lose an hour of sleep. So right now my internal clock is all messed up. I think it’s time to get rid of DST. Who needs it?
I am really beginning to wonder what happened to discipline. Every day I deal with kids who don’t care. That’s not unusual. Kids don’t want to work, they want to play. I was like that too, but I always did my work anyway. Why? Because my I knew my parents would not be happy if I didn’t do my work. It doesn’t seem that parents care anymore. I already get the kids after they’ve gotten in trouble. You’d think they wouldn’t want to get in trouble any more than they already have, but many don’t care because there are no consequences for their actions at home. I’m not saying that all parents are apathetic towards their kids’ schoolwork, but many are. It amazes me how they just don’t care. Of course, when their kid fails or when they say their kid doesn’t learn anything, they blame the schools. Well, maybe if you would actually pay attention and care about what your kid does, they wouldn’t be having troubles. Why don’t parents discipline their kids anymore? Are they afraid to? Are too many of them trying to be the cool parents and trying to be friends of their kids? I have no idea. I’m not a parent so I can’t answer any of these. I will say one thing though, my kids will have discipline. If they get in trouble, they will know there will be consequences.