For awhile now, I've been lusting after Samsung's version of the Razor phone. I've had Samsung phones for awhile and have been pretty happy with them as phones. Being a little crumudgeonly (shaddup) I been pleased with how they do has phones. Sprint being high performing jerks won't give any deals to any existing customers. What's a boy to do but to turn to ebay, where I've purchased previous phones. I got a good price on the "razor" and sent off a money order. Today I was checking on a couple of other things in "My Ebay" and noticed that my phone vendor is no longer registered as a user. Serves me right.

Hope he gets mugged taking my mo to the bank.

In other news, I was doing a little research at work today and thought I'd pass along a little bon mot to any of you folks who get your tv/internet from Time Warner. The Customer I was talking about had a "Silver Advantage" pak. This was set up under Adelphia. Whenever anybody changes anything, we're supposed to get them into Time Warner pricing. I discovered that if you put the Silver Advantage customer into Time Warner pricing, the customer doesn't lost any channels, the internet costs go down and the tv goes down about $9.00-$10.00 a month. Not a big amount, but hell, that's a decent bottle of wine (A much better way to spend money). If you got Silver or Bronze from Adelphia, shoot me a post-it or sumthin.

I did get the wine I wrote about in a previous post, 12 bottles of Mcwilliams Australian vino. For free, it's pretty damn good. I got the wooden case (nice touch) out to the car. I popped open a saval blanc open for this post and it's quite tasty. Being a good guy, I gave 3 bottle to the ex and there is still a line to get into my excuse for a wine rack. That is never a bad thing.

On the subject of booze however, my boss came up to me as I was leaving and asked if I could help her out. Turned out there a guy dead to the world in our lobby. Dude had two empty bottles of St. Ives at his feet. No telling how long he had been there. She tried talking to him and you could hear his eyes roll as he went right back to sleep. Cops from next door came and took him to some place to sleep it off. By this time, the cleaning crew arrived. I couldn't help but laugh a little as the crew chief told one of his people to "be sure and clean that chair reaaaal good."

Got an early birthday present today as well. Bagged a $1000 gift card to Circuit City. I'm thinking 43 will be my HD birthday! Wrinkles be damned. The xbox 360 will look so much nicer with the compatible HD set. Good times.

Stay warm ya'all

So, Hillary's in. Obama's in, Richardson's in, Edwards is in and a really obscure Republican. If the respective fields can have debate for the future instead of arguing the past, that would be a positive thing. This is going to be really long process where Hillary will have to hear about 1993 Health reform failures, Edwards and Obama will have to hear about their lack of experience for being President. Who the hell has that exactly? Joe Biden from Massachusetts has been in the Senate for over 20 years and he's no more experienced at being President than Obama.

I like Obama. He finds his own opinions and keeps them. He is going to be the frontrunner in 2012. The country is a very polarized place and he ain't gonna snag it the first time out. In the words of my favorite recent president (Bartlet), "You surround yourself with smart people." He adopts that he'd be fine. I like him because he is actually saying something. I'm not sure I agree with it all, but it's good to see that there is some substance once the media gets done with the first African American candidate novelty. Hillary has the star power, but she too is pretty polarizing. It's gonna be a long haul. Pace yourself, candidates.

Elsewhere, Number 1 son and I repaired to Cold Stone on saturday night for some desert and saw four fools wearing the bluetooth earpieces. Nobody looks suave with those things. I understand handsfree while you're driving, but good gawd, it's both pretentious and lazy to need to get the cell phone call so urgently with the scratch of the ear. And that ain't worth looking like Lt. Uhura, and not in the good way, if you know what I mean. I'd feel obligated to answer after making such an investing in falsely urgent yet dorklike techology.

I like to pair a few of these folks off so they at least look like they are enjoying human interaction.

I'm pretty sure the poor ventilation in my office is going to be the death of me. You feel good going in, feel light headed there and good on the way out. My desk is in a "room" partitioned off from another and the circulation literally blows. As a result, I'm looking for excuses to walk around, with a purpose, you know, the confident wave and a clipboard sort of strut.

It's almost the end of January and I finally took the box of xmas decor back to the basement. No sense rushing.

The kids had a good hoot at my expense. My Dad was quite the taker of Kodak Slides when we were growing up. He was showing a few, from mid 70's occasions. If he gets the slide of me at my six grade graduation completed, I'll post it. Considering it's from 76, you will buy a used car from me.

Fuck, I'm getting older. (e:Paul) 's birthday reminded me of my own in 2 weeks when I celebrate turning 30 for the 13th time, a fact compounded by the email I got about my upcoming high school reunion. Will the people who treated me like shit be worth being around that many years later? I doubt it.

I love dogs. It's the owners that sometimes have a knack for pissing me off, as the pets are sometimes more intelligent than their two legged owners. Not a day goes by that I don't see some moron holding a leash that isn't attached to the dog. What is the fuckin point? an alibi for when you do get the ticket? Don't even get me started on the idiots who insist on dragging the poor animals to things like the Elmwood Arts Fest. None of these chuckleheads ever stop to fucking look to see how miserable their four legged family members are.

I write this because my 12 year old was leaving church yesterday on Elmwood. She was catching up to some friends at the former Manhattan Bagel. Coming from the other direction was a sizeable dog and its brainless owner. The dog got caught up in the excitement on the street and knocked my daughter to the ground while said owner was oblivious to the dog's behavior. First words out of the jackass's mouth was "He never does that at home." Like my kid secretly replaced the dog's coffee with Folgers. My lovely child is pretty tough and rather stoical. The moron asked if she was okay and immediately left. No effort to be sincere in conern. No effort to help her get to her into the sandwich shop. My lovely daughter now has a softball size bruise on her thigh and bloodied knee because a idiot was too caught up in the strip versus village debate to pay attention to the behavior of her animal. There is a reason why they tell kids that dogs and other pets are big responsibilities. I wish the adults would have to digest that speech too.

Having found out about this, 8 hours after the fact made me even more frustrated. It pisses me off that somebody is so self-absorbed in being seen on the Village/Strip/Ave that they genuine sink into buffoonery. Walk you dog, but have a fuckin clue.

But having worked the Bills game yesterday, I saw my share of buffoons. More drunken yahoos then you care to shake a stick at. When you work the game, there is a shuttle that takes employees from the far lot around the stadium to where we enter. The path takes the long way around. As the bus pulled around the practice field, there were already two guys so out of it, I doubted they were going to make it in. Once at my post, every third person had a stagger to them, or so it seemed. What a difference a month makes. I busted somebody trying to break into my suites. You'd think a kid would try that, but the moron was almost my age. Gave me great pleasure to run him out. The suite owners sent out a steady supply of drinks in gratitude. It's an interesting people watching fest when the gates open and up to half time, then I'm prone to getting full for it. I couldn't believe the amount of folks who were there to literally make a day out of it. I have to be there by 10 for a 1:00 game and I got to Abbot Road by 9, it still took 45 minutes to climb to the employee lot. Got a high five from the mascot from Takeo Spikes and the Bills mascot for tips.

There is a shuttle to go back, but I never bother with it. After walking a few miles in a small space, the walk back feels good. Walking from the employee gate, through the camper lot, I was stopped to take pictures for two different groups ("Everybody say: Jets Blow!"), a woman I'd never seen before starting running toward me to exchange high fives. While she was charging, I was quickly running through my mental rolodex ("Did I know her? Should I be frightned? Is she empty handed?) Since the answers were no, no and yes. I exchanged greetings and moved on. The Bills Employee tag is fairly well known as I made the turn one tailgator gave the long day look and offered a burger with the trimmings. Dude could cook too. I exchanged pleasantries with he and his party, newly fortified, completed the journey to my car.

Today, my ankles are telling my knees lies about the effects of standing around for six hours, but taking the day off from the world big cable is soothing to my morale. Went for a job interview that I won't take, but it was good practice. I did discover, you walk in Spot with a suit on everybody takes you seriously. They opened a register just for me. I must wear a suit well.

Happy Monday, ya'all