Don't buy sunglasses at the Arco on College and Montezuma

I was riding my bicycle past the gas station by SDSU yesterday and I saw the guy working there was putting up the numbers for the latest gas prices. He had a long pole with a grabber on the end to place the numbers on the sign high above him. I was alright with this, I even thought about how it might be fun to put those numbers up myself, as an entertaining dexterity test. But then I looked at the man's face and the sunglasses he was wearing. They still had the tags on them! Right on the bridge of the nose. Why would a gas station attendant leave the tags on a pair of sunglasses sold at the minimart where he works? Is it because that is the new style, to leave your tags on your sunglasses, or because he did not buy them? My fear is that he is just using them for a minute because it is a sunny day, and he plans to put them right back on the shelf. This wouldn't be a major criminal offense if it was the middle of November, but it is June, the hottest freakin' month we have had in San Diego this year. On a hot day like this the bridge of a person's nose and the backs of his ears are going to get hot and sweaty. This means there will be a pair of sunglasses on the shelf with alot of minimart attendant sweat on them. Sure, he might have wiped it off, but does that make it OK? I say no. Sunglasses at that Arco will be forever tainted as far as I'm concerned. I hate to think of what other atrocities might have occured there. Hopefully they don't sell underwear over there too.

Being on unemployment is a full time job.

A couple of weeks ago I filed for unemployment benefits and it is a pain in the ass. There are all these forms, I have to register with multiple California government agencies, the paperwork is hard to decipher, and I have to make notes on every place where I have applied for work. And don't even get me started on what a pain it is to get the last 18 months of financial records from the HR office at both of my part time jobs.

And after all this I still haven't received a check yet. And because the paperwork is so confusing I'm not even sure if I will be receivig a check. But I haven't given up on the dream yet. An old neighbor of mine told me that someone on unemployment qualifies for food stamps or WIC or whatever it is, and if this is really true I will take a trip down to the family services office in my neighborhood. If I am able to sift through all the proper administrative details I might be able to find a way to get some actual government cheese. I feel that if I can manage to actually get a free block of natural cheddat cheese in my hands, then this whole experience will have been worth it.

Looking for Work Suuuuuuuuuuuucks.

Why does looking for work suck so bad? Is it because looking for work is work? Or is it worse than work because you have to motivate yourself without any instruction or coercion? I say it's worse than work. I have been looking through online applications and they are killing me. They either want an unskilled worker who will start at low base pay to do some data entry word processing type stuff, or an expert in field with over two years of experience. I am neither of these. So for this afternoon and many more afternoons to come I will be searching for the middle ground. I want to get in the field of professional writing/editing and I don't want to start at the remedial level of data entry. Or am I being all snobby about this, is data entry where it's at? Maybe I should just fill out an application at Ralphs. Or maybe I should just hang with the scruffy recycling gang in the Ralphs parking lot. I see this one dude every time I'm at my local Ralphs, looking bummy with two sacks of cans and eating lunch fresh from the deli counter. Maybe he's got the right idea.

Shamrock's Shack Replaced by Hookah Bar, Great.

I was walking by the place that used to be Shamrock's Shack and I noticed that the building was being renovated. I asked one of the construction workers what the new place was going to be and he said it was going to be a hookah bar. A hookah bar? Why the hell do they need to build another hookah bar around here. El Cajon Blvd. needs more hookah bars like it needs more liquor stores and smoke shops. How about another regular bar instead of a lousy tobacco bar. When the shack shut down it left a hole in the bar line up. It used to be bar number three of the neighborhood bar crawl. You would skip the horrible Chico Club, start at Norm's, then Mad Dog's (which is now the Go Lounge), then Shamrock's, then the Boulevard.

Who is going to fill the place when it opens? All the people who are too subversive for Starbucks and too normal for the Treehouse Cafe with their beer cupcakes? I want to support local businesses in my neighborhood, but I can't come up with one good reason to go to a hookah bar. I'd rather go to that weird Treehouse cafe and get a pub cake.

Stay tuned for part 5 of the 8 part fine dining review: Treehouse Cafe, Pub Cakes or Pube Cakes?

what's worse, the luddite or the neophyte?

About a week ago a friend of mine called me the youngest luddite he knew. After looking up the word I wondered how bad it really is, to be a luddite. If I were to stop being one, then I would have to convert to the new technology and be a neophyte. The recent neophyte is with the program but he has no soul. Anybody can jump on the bandwagon, but it takes commitment to be an old fashioned pain in the ass who won't adopt the new standard. I like books with pages and I don't know how to use a smartphone. So I'm sorry if that is a problem. Well, have fun looking up these two obnoxious vocabulary words. And good luck ever finding a use for them.