Human Behavior at Aldi

Today I made a trip to our local Aldi to pick up some groceries. Nothing out of the ordinary about that.  There are always some interesting characters there, but today was especially perplexing.

I was in line at the one checkout lane that’s open, with a whole cart full of stuff.  A man came up behind me holding just two containers of whipped topping.  To be nice, I asked him if he wanted to go ahead of me, since I had so many more items than he did. He happily took advantage of my offer. Then, I started to unload all of my stuff onto the counter, a man comes into line behind me with an armload of stuff; at least 10 items or more. He gave me what I would call a nasty look. Now, it’s not my fault that he chose not to pay a quarter(which you get back by the way) to get a cart. He looked at me in a way that suggested since I let the other man go ahead of me, I should let him go too. I disagreed. If I continued to do this, who knows how many customers I would end up letting go ahead of me in line? No thanks.  I would never get out of there. So, I continued to unload my cart, and he continued to give me a nasty look.

The cashier then announced another lane would be opening, and asked the man to go to that lane. The man then said loudly, “how long will that take?”. The cashier totally ignored this comment, which I thought was hilarious.  The man then moved over to the other lane.

Cut to me outside. I’m unloading my bags into the back of my car. I see “The Man” standing next to his vehicle (which was an old minivan in case you wanted to know) with his pants down at his ankles, navy blue briefs on, peeing into a plastic portable urinal in the parking lot. I looked around the parking lot to see if anyone else was watching but me, but everyone else seemed totally oblivious to this! I continued to watch from my rear view mirror, and I then saw the man pour the contents of the urinal onto the ground.

OK, if you are going to go through the trouble of using a portable urinal to pee, why dump it on the ground? Why not just pee directly onto the pavement, if you intend on dumping the urine out? Or, why not sit in your vehicle, where there is some privacy, and do your business so no one can see you? I will never know what was going through this man’s head.  Anyway, he dumped the urinal on the ground, pulled up his pants, got in his van, and drove away.

I wondered then if he was angry in the checkout like because he desperately had to urinate? Maybe he thought he was about to pee his pants because the line was too long, so he took out his aggression on me and the checkout guy. I don’t know. I just wished there was someone else there to witness this sequence of events with me, because it made my day.

P.S. Full disclosure-the picture above is not from today, it’s from the internet. Of course I wanted to take a picture of the actual guy, but that would have probably been inappropriate. Maybe next time……….

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Hi, I know I tried to watch this movie when it first came out(on VHS) and I probably gave it a half hour total before turning it off. Recently, a friend mentioned this movie to me, and said I just HAD TO watch it. The backstory to this is I recently started smoking pot(occasionally) for the first time since I was a teenager (a long time ago). I obtain said pot from the same friend. She said it would be hilarious. I happen to love hilarious things, so I thought I would give it a try again (after smoking some pot).

Well, again, I do not get this movie. I know it has a big cult following, and it’s supposed to be great, but, no, not for me. I had no interest in it, and got bored quickly.  Made it about 15 minutes before turning it off.  My partner and I then decided it would be a good idea to play catch phrase instead. Now THAT was hilarious. It’s either very hard to give good clues or very hard to guess the right answer when you’re high. Either way, it makes for a nice little Friday night.

 

The Passage Book Review-Update

 

So…..I’m about 400 pages into this book now, out of over 700, and I must say it has taken a turn that I have to call boring. I was totally sucked into this book for the first 400 pages or so, then the original storylines ended, and it fast-forwarded into the future. This “future” storyline is uninteresting to me, and I desperately want the book to go back to the previous story and characters, and tell me what the f happened in between!

On a side note, I work nights, I do all of my reading at night, and I require something engaging enough to keep me awake. This is not doing the job right now. The other night, I put the book down, and started to browse the internet to keep myself awake. I stumbled across a headline that read,”25 Never Before Seen Photos of the Titanic!” and I actually clicked on it to look at the photos!  Talk about desperation. Apparently, I found the old timey Titanic pictures more enticing than reading this book.

What to do! I am very invested in the book time wise,  but I can’t seem to get myself interested enough again to actually finish it. Maybe I should skip ahead? I don’t know. For now, I’ve chosen to pick up some other books and start to read those until I make up my mind. And, browse the internet for random crap. I’ll keep you posted……..

The Passage-Book Review

A friend of mine, who reads a lot, gave me this book, among others, to borrow. She gave it to me because she said she had 2 copies, and had not even read it yet. I wondered, how do you end up with 2 brand new copies of a 700+ page book?  Off the subject…..

I had no idea what this book was about, but I have a new job on the night shift that allows me a lot of free time to read. I thought I would give this book a try. On the back of the book, there is a paragraph that states, “Read 15 pages and you will find yourself captivated; read 30 and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night.” This excerpt was actually written by Stephen King, which I found interesting.

Anyway, I read 15 pages and I was captivated, I read 30 and I did find myself reading late into the night(because I work the night shift). The book is over 700 pages long, and I am on page 200. I don’t want to say what it’s about, but I am getting sucked into it. I can’t provide a proper review until I finish the book. Apparently, it is the 1st book of a trilogy. If they’re all 700 pages, looks like I’ll be busy for awhile……..

A Clockwork Orange(1971)

“In future Britain, charismatic delinquent Alex DeLarge is jailed and volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society’s crime problem – but not all goes according to plan.”

I thought I would try to watch this movie based on its high reviews on IMDB and its cult following. It’s claimed to be a real classic.

No, hated it, every minute of it, all of the 15-20 minutes that I sat through. From what I remember, it involved some guys dressed in white, performing violent acts, in a weird way, that made me feel uncomfortable and sick. Not qualities I enjoy in a cinematic experience.

I could not sit through any more of this movie and turned it off. Apparently it’s supposed to be great, Stanly Kubrick is a genius, it has hidden meanings, it’s artistic, blah, blah, blah.  No likey.

 

Review- Grand Theft Auto 5 PS3

OK, I am not a big video game fan in the first place, at least not of the games of today. I prefer the video games that were around at the time during my youth. I’m talking about Intelevision-Burger Time, and plain old Nintendo. Side scrolling masterpieces! None of this fancy stuff where you have to sit through some huge introduction just to start the game, or the graphics are so realistic it almost makes me nauseated. Anyway, I decided to give one of these “new” games a try on the Playstation 3(which I bought to watch DVD’s on).

Overall, I have to admit I suck at these new games. And I think I figured out why……There are way too many buttons on the controller! There are like 4 on the top, 2 “joystick” things, and multiple other push buttons. I can’t keep track of which ones do what, so I just push them all, in no particular order, and see what happens. Of course, I fail miserably at the “missions”, or I get “busted”, or “wasted” within 5 minutes of every attempt. But, I have to say it’s pretty hilarious. On my last game, I wrecked my car, stole a fire truck while being chased by the cops, crashed the fire truck immediately into a telephone pole, got out, accidentally got on my cell phone, called someone, got a busy signal, and just stood there, surrounded by cops. No matter what buttons I pushed, I couldn’t manage to hang up the phone, run, or get a weapon to fight back. I think they either killed me or I got “busted”.  Even though I am terrible at this game, and I’m sure all others like it. It’s still a lot of fun to play, and I end up laughing every time I lose. 17 bucks well spent at the pawn shop-great investment.

 

Spotlight – Movie Review

Spotlight-“The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.”

I tried to watch this, has a great cast, and it won some awards. I also usually like anything that is either based on a true story, or that is a true story, makes it more intriguing…..

Not this time. For some reason, I gave this movie about 10 minutes and I was just not interested. They did nothing to “suck me in” and keep watching it. I think we did turn it off after 10 minutes. I wanted to like it. I wanted to hear about the Catholic molestation scandal, but, I couldn’t do it. I told myself I would read about the scandal just to make up for the fact that I didn’t watch the movie. But, I didn’t do that either.

Under the Skin – Movie Review

OK, Under the Skin(2013). “A mysterious woman seduces lonely men in the evening hours in Scotland. Events lead her to begin a process of self-discovery.” What the hell is this? Tried to watch this, almost made it through the whole movie just because I wanted to see if anything was actually going to happen. But, I gave up, and I didn’t even care either.

The first thing wrong with this movie is there is way too much of absolutely nothing going on, and nothing is explained. It starts off with this girl, driving around, picking up men, taking them “somewhere” where she then takes off her clothes(except for her bra, which is weird) and then she leads them into this “pool” where they “disappear”. There is very little dialog in this movie, and no explanations, unless they came at the end after I stopped watching it. All I can say is they could have gotten whatever the point was across after this girl picked up a couple guys and leads them into the pool. But, it keeps happening over and over, and over, which basically takes up the whole movie. It was also very dark and quiet, and to me was trying too hard to be over the top “artsy”.  Also, where are the events leading to her “self discovery”? I guess I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. No thanks.

Deadpool Movie Review

So, I tried to watch Deadpool the other day. And I do mean tried. I generally do not like “super hero” movies and I think there are too many of them, especially lately. Someone explained this to me. It seems that someone released the rights to something, and then a bunch of people decided they better make a movie out of every single comic book ever made. Anyway, I do like Batman(because Christain Bale is in it), and most recently, Antman(because of Paul Rudd). No further explanation required. Back to Deadpool. It got great reviews and a high # on IMDB, so why not give it a chance……

I think I made it through 15 minutes total. The movie starts out with an over the top action sequence, including several(too many) slow motion shots. This was peppered with a bunch of cheesy lines that were not funny. My partner was watching it with me, and had to leave the room to take a phone call. I gave it another 10 minutes, and then I decided to leave it on, get up, and wash the dishes. So, I guess I like washing dishes more than watching Deadpool. When my partner returned, I explained to him that I didn’t like the movie, and he said, he figured. I said I would rather watch Antman for 5 minutes and fall asleep, because that actually happened the other day. Not because I don’t like that movie, but because I was really tired. Then he said, why don’t you just go to sleep, you don’t have to watch 5 minutes of Antman first. Good point.