Recently in Daily Droppings Category
I'm blogging about recent events again... someone stop me before I go apeshit.
So, it's disgusting enough that Jdimytai Damour got crushed to death at Wal-Mart on Black Friday. I just saw the autopsy revealed the cause of death was asphyxiation. Imagine, trying to catch a breath while hundreds of feet are pounding on your chest - feet that are racing to get gasp! ohmygod! a LCD TV for $200 off! It infuriates and sickens me.
So yea, that's bad enough. But guess what? Now there's more. And I bet you could smell this coming from a mile away.
Wait for it... wait for it...
Customers injured in the crush are suing Wal-Mart!
I'm trying to figure out why, if I'm so disgusted, I'm sitting here stifling a laughing fit so I don't wake Dave up in the other room. I probably want to laugh because people are so goddamn ugly and predictable.
Attorney Kenneth Mollins said Fritz Mesadieu and Jonathan Mesadieu were "literally carried from their position outside the store" and are now "suffering from pain in their neck and their back from being caught in that surge of people" that rushed into the Wal-Mart.I bet the pain in their neck and back is nothing compared to what Jdimytai Damour went through.
And even better:
In a claim against the Nassau County police department, the men also contend that they "sustained monetary losses as a result of health care and legal expenses ... in the sum of $2 million."Wow, that's a nice round number. Health care and legal expenses, my ass. I had full blown knee surgery a couple of years ago - cost of everything, including surgery, drugs, months of physical therapy, and a year's worth of followups with a rheumatologist ran somewhere in the neighborhood of $30K. Sure, not a straight up comparison, but give me a fucking break. My theory? See, since they were "carried from their position outside the store", they weren't able to get that gasp! ohmygod! LCD TV for $200 off, so they figure a cool $2 million should allow them to get any TV they want... even if it's not on sale!
He said his clients and others who were at the scene contend that the police "were there ... saw what was happening, and they left."Really? So maybe they should sue the police, too!
Maybe Wal-Mart is partially at fault. Who would have thought a business would need full-blown riot control on Black Friday? Maybe the videotape should be investigated and these two asswipes can sue everyone who "carried" them outside the store. If they'd do that, though, they'd probably have to settle for buying a much smaller TV with their lawsuit winnings.
And maybe on their way home from Wal-Mart that day those guys should have stopped at the McDonald's drive-thru and got themselves a nice, hot cup of coffee.
I guess for some, thankfulness for being alive isn't enough.
I usually stay away from blogging about current events, but...
Regarding Jdimytai Damour, the Wal-Mart Employee who got trampled to death yesterday after opening the doors...
"This incident was avoidable," said Bruce Both, President of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500. "Where were the safety barriers? Where was security? How did store management not see dangerous numbers of customers barreling down on the store in such an unsafe manner?" asked President Both. "This is not just tragic; it rises to a level of blatant irresponsibility by Wal-Mart. UFCW Local 1500 will demand a full investigation by all levels of Government to ensure both justice for the surviving family members and to ensure the safety of current employees and the general public. This can never be allowed to happen again and those responsible must be held accountable," Both concluded.
I am absolutely no fan of Wal-Mart in any way, shape or form. And sure, there should be some safety measures to protect these types of things from happening. But what about the people? The people who needed to shop right that minute, that they couldn't stop and help someone from getting hurt. The selfish, ignorant, savages (to take a word from that article), who just had to get that flatscreen TV for only 500!, or ohmygod that digital camera for only $69!.
So is Wal-Mart responsible? I'll leave that to the lawyers. But maybe, just maybe, Wal-Mart should offer a class in being a responsible, aware, and courteous human being for the low low price of just $19.95! Sometimes people just disgust me.
My thoughts are with the Damour family.
Well, I wouldn't call it "roughing it" exactly.
Last week, we decided to pack up our camper and head out for an extended weekend of camping - 15 minutes from home.
Yea, sounds crazy, but it was actually a good time.
Robin Hill was our destination - they have "Halloween Weekends" all through October. Since we live too far out in East Jebip to actually get any trick-or-treaters, we thought it would be fun to take the camper out, decorate our site, and contribute to kids' overindulgence of sugar. The only weekend we could get was the first weekend in October. The entire campgrounds were booked for the entire month. Except for two sites, last weekend.
We headed out Thursday after work. Unfortunately it was cold as hell - temperatures were dipping down into the low 40s at night. Luckily our idea of "roughing it" includes TV, heat and a bed with lots of blankets. Friday was more of the same, overcast and chilly, and I was seriously beginning to doubt the brilliance of our idea to "get away" for a weekend. Friends came to stay with us on Saturday and entered their kids in a costume contest. Their youngest, a one year old cutie named Aiden, was dressed as a monkey and came away with Funniest Costume and a nice big Hershey bar as his prize.
The thing that amazed me about the weekend was how polite and mature the kids were. After the costume judging, the kids trick-or-treated around the campground. We had a huge tub full of candy - when we saw the number of kids at the costume judging we realized we'd be taking a lot of it back home with us. Either that or we'd all be in sugar comas by the end of the night. So when the kids came around, we told them to just grab handfuls. Most of them took one piece of candy, then looked at us in disbelief when we urged them on to take more. Even the little kids - they'd gaze into this big sea of candy and pull out one piece. Shoot, we even had good candy, like Milky Ways, Twix, Hershey bars, Nerds, Blow Pops, Skittles and stuff like that. When I was a kid, if I only had to actually choose one piece, it would have taken me 15 minutes to decide what I wanted. So we kept urging them all to take a good fistful or two. But we still ended up taking a buttload of candy home with us.
Saturday night we got a nice campfire going - it was quite an interesting sensation to feel like my fingers were being singed while my butt felt numb from the cold. So we did the requisite burger cooking and Smores making over the fire (and the requisite beer drinking by the fire), and headed in to sleep. It's interesting that I go to bed hours and hours earlier when I'm on vacation than I do when I'm at home. It's probably because I"m actually relaxed and not thinking about work or whether or not I have any one of a million projects to do at home.
So yea, it wasn't quite "roughing it", and it may sound a little mundane, but it was just a nice weekend of getting away from all the craziness of everyday life. And only 15 minutes from home.
Someone just sent me this video today... even though I think the puppies were a little tired to begin with, this is just too cute for words.
Mental Blockage, that is.
I haven't updated this blog in quite a long time - probably the longest writing hiatus I've taken since I started this weblog almost two years ago.
It's not for lack of things to write about. I mean, I've got our whole leaky roof situation, the holidays, poker I've played, the puppytoes.net store, stuff we want to do to the house... lots of stuff. But one thing has been keeping me from sitting down and actually writing something. A complete and total mental blockage.
For example, I played in two large poker tournaments and several home games since my last post. Each time I'd sit down to write about them, any kind of coherent thought would completely vacate my head. I'm empty, running on fumes. And I was hoping that forcing myself to sit down now would perhaps start nipping away at that blockage.
It's not working.
And it's not just with writing. At work I've been easily distracted and uninspired. At home I'm just doing what has to be done to get by. It's like my days are reduced to the same routine: wake up late, take Cragar out to pee and feed him, get ready and go to work, come home from work, make dinner, clean up dinner dishes, take out trash, watch a little TV, then try to sleep so I don't wake up late again the next morning. That's it. Blah.
But I'm not sleeping well, either. I'll come home from work exhausted and go through the motions until it's time for bed. Then it's like a little switch is thrown and I'm wide awake. Wide awake with really nothing to do. So I'm averaging about 4 or so hours a night sleep and I'm becoming increasingly sensitive to things like full moonlight streaming in the window or Dave's snoring - making falling asleep even more difficult.
A vacation would be nice, where it would be perfectly acceptable to have a vacant mind for awhile, where I don't have to worry if I'm going to wake up late again or even look at a clock for that matter. It's been a long time since our last good vacation.
Anyway, I just had to make this basically nonsensical post to start to break the blockage. I was hoping that in the course of writing a bunch of stuff would just come flooding out, but it's not happening yet.
Yea, a vacation sounds good.
