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With my car being about a thousand miles overdue for an oil change, I knew I needed to pick a place and pick it fast. I certainly wasn’t going to take it to a quick lube place again because they were just as much crooks as I thought they would be. My old standby use to be Wal-Mart but I noticed how they slowly creeped their prices up over the years and were getting to be just as expensive as the quick lube places. Armed with an overdue oil change and do place to go, I perused the Pennysaver in search of a decent oil change at a fair price.
I knew better than to take it to Purrfect Autocare because those guys were a more expensive rip-off version of Jip-U-Lube (instead of up-selling a $20 air filter, Purrfect pushes $300 brake jobs). I didn’t wanna walk into any mechanic with a coupon because I knew smaller mechanics would try to con me into unneeded, expensive services. I have no problem telling people “no”–I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle. On page 33 I found my answer: Meineke offered a $20 oil change (with coupon). I figured a . . . . .
For our honeymoon, The Wife wanted to go to go to an exclusive, fancy, hoity-toity tropical hotel where she could drink margaritas on the beach and fall asleep while listening to the waves crash. When I told her it sounded like she wanted to be in a Corona commercial, I ended up with an unwanted finger rammed up my nose.
One of the keys to her dream honeymoon was to be able to eat at an all-inclusive hotel. We knew we’d probably end up paying a little more compared to if we purchased everything à la cart, but we didn’t care. By our nature, The Wife and I tend to be, uh, very careful with our money. We knew that if we had to fork over ten bucks for every margarita we drank, we’d end up margarita-less and as sober as David Crosby (he’s clean now). But by going to an all-inclusive hotel, not only would we downing cocktails like Barney Gumble, we’d also buy drinks for anyone who asked. So we settled for a fancy resort on the Yucatan pennisulia that cost more per day than I could every dream to make.
The restaurants at the hotel were so . . . . .
I liked all sports, but always believed that football was the best. I always longed for football season and Sundays glued to the TV. But this year felt different–I’ve been longing for baseball ever since October. At least twice a week since Christmas, I’ve said out loud “I miss baseball.” I come to realize baseball is my true love and my favorite sport. Now with this whole Arod announcement–to realize what I love is fake–it makes me feel sick.
Now that I’m unemployed, I have a lot more time on my hands and decided to do a little research. Why am I so upset? Why am I bothered? Because steroids cheated the game of baseball. Not just the retired players who saw their milestones passed, but the fans. The game we’ve been watching the past 15 years isn’t what baseball is supposed to be. Look at some of the stats I’ve managed to accumulate.*
The top six all-time single-season home run hitters have ties to steroids. Name HRs Barry Bonds 73 Mark McGwire 70 Sammy Sosa 66 Mark McGwire 65 Sammy Sosa 64 Sammy Sosa 63 Of the top 24 single-season home run hitters, 14 happened after 1961 (when Maris . . . . .
As the Alex Rodriguez steroid scandal unfolded, I traded emails with a buddy of mine. The nature of these letters explored my emotional impact of baseball’s best player being a cheat. I thought they were rather well-written (that and it’s been a slow week) so I decided to post my side of the emails here.
This Arod announcement has taken me to a new level of jaded. Not because I’m a scorn Yankee fan, but because what it means. I now realize there is nothing true from the home run explosion of the 90s. Mark Grace wasn’t mediocre because he didn’t hit enough bombs–he just happened to be the only person clean. Look at the list–all of the great players of the past 15 years are linked to steroids. I’m not going to name everyone because you know every one, but the majority of them have juiced. Not just speculation. Now there’s failed drug tests and BALCO allegations. Camaniti and Canseco’s claim of 75 percent of baseball looks very, very true.
Arod was supposed to be different. I remember when he was a number one pick out of high school. He was always supposed to be great so that’s . . . . .
The economy is bad (or so the experts say) and my employer felt that my position had to be eliminated.* Faced with the option of paying off my student loans with no income, I decided to delay the inevitable and return to school full time. It doesn’t seem that long since I was a full-time student, but considering “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire” was popular and “Dawson’s Creek” was still on the air, I guess it has. The year was 2003 and I was finishing up my final college semester by sleeping through boring, pointless classes.
The biggest thing that has changed is the technology. I wrote about this a few months back, but it’s even greater than I realized. Back in 2003, I was a major email-user; unfortunately, the majority of my teachers were not. Very few were willing to communicate by email; now I have teachers insisting that all papers are emailed so we can save trees.
The computer has made everything different. At my school, everything gets done online. You can register for classes, check grades, even pay tuition. None of this was available in 2003. It might not seem like much, but it’s a whole . . . . .
I generally don’t make impulse buys. No–that’s a lie: I NEVER make impulse buys. When I head to somewhere to buy something, I buy that something and nothing else (it’s not cheap: it’s falling under budget). Best Buy can offer me all the accessories and add-ons they want; I’m not walking out of there with anything more than what I planned to buy. Grocery stores hate me: I buy only what’s on sale with a low mark-up (milk, meat, and bread). I’ll pass on the magazines, sticks of gum, bars of candy, and Aqua Globes. That’s how one can afford to survive when they have no money. At least I use to be…until I caved and made my first-ever impulse buy.
A 20 pound bag of rice.
I was at the grocery store to by milk (and only milk) and saw a giant palate stacked chin-high with 20-pounds bags of rice. The sign said $10 and called it a “special buy.” Since I am a smart shopper, I disregard any claims to “A Deal” unless I can verify the price myself. So I went back to the store, got my milk, and intended to return to the checkout lane. But . . . . .
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