The Lie

Remember a few weeks ago when I said I was going to college.  Yeah, I haven't even thought about it since that day.  I guess now would be a good time to tell everyone that I'm not going to do that.  Well, I guess I shouldn't say that I'm definitely not going to go to college, as I think I really am ready to take classes, but once I thought about how much bullshit I will have to go through to get into a higher learning institution, I just sort of gave up on the idea.  Right now, it's not my priority, just the same as it's been for the past 10 years.  I just don't want to go to school.  Simple as that.

I'm dancing around the words a bit in that above sentence because I always want to keep the option open, even if it's only a mental thing, which gets you nowhere.  Right now I'm focused on the immediate future, which is a very real and unavoidable family life.  Bettering myself will come soon enough, I'm sure.  Right now, I need to focus on what I can do with the resources I have.  That probably means working shit jobs for low pay.  I obviously don't care all that much because when I weigh the options, I'll stick with the status quo, which has been the status quo for me for my entire adult life.  The only times I make a change is when I'm forced to, and no one is forcing me to go to college.  Therefore, I'll just continue to bitch and complain about things without actively trying to change the situation, because I'm an American, and that's what we do.  

I won't lie to you or me about this anymore until it's actually changing.  

Trying to Buy

I spent a portion of yesterday morning in line in front of the Apple store in the Mall at Green Hills attempting to buy an iPad 2.  To be honest, I never thought I would be doing that in my life anytime soon, but because this was not a fancy new device for my personal use, it makes a bit more sense that I was where I was.

You see, my wife runs a call center at a university, and she if given a budget in which to work with.  One of the things is using awards as incentive to help the callers do a better job.  She is giving away to the winners, an iPad 2, an Xbox 360, and a Kindle.  Now, maybe it's just Deja Vu, but I swear I already typed that recently.  I even looked at my recent posts and I don't see where I would have, but if I have, I'm sorry to repeat myself.

Anyway, there I was outside the Apple store at 7:30 a.m. when the store, nor the Mall technically opens until 10:00 a.m.  We were seventh in line, which I felt was pretty solid.  We were looking for a specific model of iPad, so it had to be that one or bust.  You see, this Apple store told us on Saturday that they only get a certain amount of iPads in a shipment daily, and they never know what's going to be in the shipment, so you just have to show up at 7:30 in the morning if you want a shot at getting you hands on one.  No other details, just show up and wait.  Wow.  Well, we showed, and all they had was the 64 gig WiFi, the 64 gig, AT&T and the 64 gig Verizon versions.  We wanted the 16 gig WiFi only one.  Bummer!!!

I'd have to say this is either brilliant, or fucking stupid, I can't tell.  But the argument towards brilliant seems to be winning in my mind.  You get people showing up at your store three hours before it actually opens to wait for your one specific product?  Talk about build a buzz.  (Let me clarify, the timeline for our wait wasn't that dramatic.  We got there at 7:35ish, the store was due to open an hour early at 9 a.m.  A lady came out and told us what she had for sale at 8:30, so we really only stood there for an hour or so.)  On the other hand, you're jerking around your loyal customers, asking them to wake up super early and wait around, just to tell them their Princess is in another castle, so to speak.  Plus, these iPads they're buying are a minimum of $500, so it's not like you want to permanently piss these people off.

I don't think that what their doing is wrong, I thing that the Apple company could really do a better job of making something they're selling so fast and advertising so hard.  But really, it's not that big of a deal.  If you want one bad enough, you'll jump through enough hoops to get one.  So this morning we were set to go try again, but when that alarm went off, we both said "fuck that" and reset the alarm for 8.  I couldn't sleep so I got up anyway and fed the dog and started writing.  So maybe we'll try again tomorrow.  Maybe we'll try on Thursday, Friday...Who knows?  I think It's fun, waking up and heading out entirely too early in the morning.  It's something new and exciting!.  

A Change You Can Believe In

It was rudely pointed out to me a while back that the name of my blog is "the stupidest name ever."  This opinion seriously effected me ever since.  So, today (or rather as of yesterday) this blog is changing it's name.  Sort of like when Pizza Hut or Radio Shack tried to make themselves more versitle by tweeking their names in their advertising, I am doing the same.  Pizza Hut tried to make themselves The Hut, and Radio Shack tried to make themsleves just "The Shack."  Now, while I'm not going to change it to "the Bloggerated,"  I will just shorten it to "Bloggerated."  Why?  I don't know really.  I just think it's a bit cleaner and hipper.  I honesly just threw out the first thing I thought of when I named the blog two years ago.  I never hated it, but never really liked it either.  But I am willing to adapt to the times, and that means shuffeling a few things around, I will.

Now as you may have noticed if you have been visiting the blog in the past few weeks, that I have added at store so you can buy products related to the blog and show the world how much you like reading mediocre, meandering rambelings of a dude who wants attention.  Well, now those old products are outdated.  I've gone ahead and updated the store to reflect the new change in blog.  Now, if you have bought any of the products with the old name on it (which no one has) I will gladly replace it.  Just send me the old, outdated product and a check made out to me for $15 dollars and I'll send you out a shiny new whatever it is you bought with the updated text on it.  It's my way of saying "I'm sorry."  I mean those quotation marks to mean exactly what they sound like, by the way.  Read that with the air quotes, that what I mean.

Another change I was ready to make was the URL you use to get here.  I thought it would be prudent to take my given name out of the URL, to protect myself and the innocent I talk about herein.  Granted, it's been the way it is for two solid years now and nothing has happened yet, but, you know, I'd just like to get it out of there.  So, I tried to.  I went to the design function here and changed the URL to bloggerated.blogspot.com.  Well, it said it already taken.  What?  I made that word up, who would take it?  I guess it was someone three years before me...and they only posted like, 5 times.  JERKS!  How can that happen...

Here's bloggerated.blogspot if you care to check it out.

But yeah, Change is good. You cant stop it now.

P.S.
You can now read the blog translated into Russian, so that should be fun.  I don't want to exclude the Commies! 

A Boost of Energy?

It really works

There are two things constantly on my mind lately.  The Nashville Predators race to the Playoffs and the impending birth of my first born child.  One, you would say, is seriously more important than the other, and that is true in the long run.  But in the immediate, both are equally important to me.  That's all I really have to say on that subject.

I'm not sure if this new gum is actually doing what it says it does or if it's all mental, but I'd have to say that this new Stride "spark" gum does what it's advertised to do.  It claims that it has b6 and b12 vitamins in it which give you a boost of energy when you chew it.  Now, the cynic in me says "fuck you, advertisers," but the dude chewing the gum says "yeah, that totally does that."  You see, I didn't know there was anything special about the gum when I grabbed it off the shelf at the store.  I just wanted some gum, and I always grab whatever is the newest flavor.  I'll try every new flavor of gum once, especially if it's the new flavor.  Typically, I'm enjoy the gum, with a few major exceptions, which I'll discuss in a minute.  But this gum, this one tasted pretty good, I'd say.  I chewed a few pieces, and found the experience pleasurable, I guess.  It wasn't until a few pieces in that I noticed the packaging said it had these vitamins in it that give you the supposed boost of energy.  That's when I realized that while chewing the gum, I had a serious uptick in finger drumming.  I thought, "yeah, that did that!" even though I'm typically not one to buy into that bullshit.  If you want B vitamins, eat a fruit or vegetable, ya sucker.  But no, I didn't just believe I had more energy because the label told me I would.  I noticed I was more alert and stuff.  When I have a lot of pent up energy, I drum my fingers.  This made me do that.  Honestly.  I'd say try it out, but I believe that now that I have pointed this out to you, you will probably say you are experiencing a placebo effect.  I'm not sure how you could test this out, but I found that my unknowingly getting this energy boost if proof enough for me.

Now, as far as buying a new gum that sucked ass, that would also be a flavor that Stride came up with.  It's called Sweet Cinnamon.  Holy fuck was that shit gross.  Now, I like cinnamon gum every now and then, like any typical dude or chick might.  Not my favorite, but I can handle it.  I bought it because it was new, but it just burns you tongue and makes you want to gag and hurl.  So gross.  I ended up giving an almost full pack of gum to someone who said they wanted it, and I was glad to get rid of it.  Totally gross.  Don't buy that, just trust me on this.

So yeah, gum is good.  Most of the time, if you see me with gum, it's probably the newest flavor available.  But if I can keep on finding this Spark kind, I'll keep chewing this for as long as I can stand the flavor.  Because it works, damn it.

Today, I Learn How to Spell "Entrepreneur"

This morning, I had a great idea for a blog post, and now I've spent the past hour racking my brain to figure out what the subject was.  Why don't I write these things down?

No, instead, I'll just move along and talk about something else.  I watched this show on ABC last night called "the Shark Tank."  On the show, they bring in people who have a little business and are trying to get an invester "the sharks" to invest in their company to help it grow.  It's a pretty good concept for a show, because they're not searching for the "next great thing," which expects to find something that is nothing and turn it into something bigger.  This show takes a good idea, and the "sharks" invests their own hard-earned money in it.  If it's not good, they'll take a pass on it, but if it's a good idea, they invest, while taking a steak in the company in some way, shape or form. Great idea, as this sort of thing happens all the time anyway, just not always on TV.  People have great ideas for businesses and they pitch the idea to people with a lot of money, and when the idea or company takes off, the investor makes more money on top of their already massive pile of ching.  It's a reality show, and I'm not all that crazy about reality shows in general, but this show kind of grabbed me in a way I didn't expect.

You see, with the sellers market I've been in, I want to find a non-traditional way to make my millions, because at this point, I have too.  Working for this security company is not supposed to be permanent.  I want to be an entrepreneur, but I need that golden plan.  I need that Facebook.  I need that Napster.  I need that eBay.  I need that Twitter.

I mean, not that I'm going to get into the tech department, but you get the idea, right? I need to come up with that idea that will make me a million.  I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and I think if I work hard enough at it, I could do anything.  It's all about what you put in, that's what you'll get out of it.

Also, on related but altogether side note, I had created some products to sell on the site Zazzle.  Someone bought one of the orders I had made, but soon after that, some of my products got pulled from the site because of "copyright infringement."  Total bullshit.  So I thought I was about to cash in with my clever "iPad mouse pad" which looked like an iPad, but it was just a mouse pad, but now, I'm not.  Makes me sad.  But you know, I was totally ripping off Apple computers inc.  Haha, well, it was worth a shot, right?

Posts About Babies?: The Sellers Market

What can I sell next?  That is the question.  You see, last Saturday, I got home from work, and started taking pictures of some jerseys I have in my closet.  These are jerseys I never wear, yet are pretty sweet items that I'm sure someone out there would want.  So, I took pictures of them and posted them for sale on the legendary auction site eBay.  I have bought things on eBay before, but never sold anything, so I was excited to see that people were "viewing" my items.  Then came the bids.  I have one bid, the minimum amount, on each of the two jerseys I have up for auction. That means they're sold, essentially. The final amounts will be settled when the auctions close at approximately 3:00 p.m. this afternoon. The money I will make will probably be low, and the hassle will probably be not worth it in the long run, but you know what?  This is starting me out on a new path.  What else can I sell?

Now, I know what I like and what I would be interested in buying on eBay.  There are thousands of things up for sale and auction on that website, and most listings I just don't trust.  Not that I think everyone on there has become a scam artist, but it looks like a lot of folks have found a way to make a buck off unsuspecting web surfers via a large, trusted site like eBay.  I don't want to deceive people, I just want to sell some things and make a buck or two.  It's not really about the money for me anymore, though that's not to say it's not about the money at all, either.  This is exciting.  I believe it's also my natural instinct to try to better myself in preparation on the newest member of the family.  But you see, I can't just throw any old thing up for sale on eBay.  I have to have confidence that someone else out there would be willing to pay money for it.  I also have to be willing to part with it, whatever it is.  It's that balance I'm trying to find, and I'm looking around the apartment for that balance.

I know I would buy a jersey off eBay, because I have before.  I know that if I was willing to buy something like that off there, someone else probably would as well.  Well, I only have so many jerseys that I'm willing to part with, and those are currently up for auction.  So that's no longer an option.  It's not worth my time to sell CD's on there because I promise I could sell them back to the used record shops around town and make a better profit, and it's less hassle as far as shipping and what not.  Plus it's instant transaction at the record stores.  So, I'll be doing that again, as I did back in December.

Why do I want to sell everything?  I don't even know.  My friend Cindy says it's perfectly natural, and I would have to agree, but to just be randomly compelled to go out and hawk my shit to strangers, this is so unlike me.  But the important thing is, I'm having fun.  I got big dreams of a secondary income from selling shit to people on a regular basis.  I just have to find that balance of supply and demand.  What in my supply will people demand?

I Love College

Hey guys!  The NCAA tournament is finally here, which means I will increase my college basketball watching by about 457% in the next four days.  Then depending on how my picks did, my basketball watching will either continue to be high, or it will plummet back to it's regular level.  We shall see, I suppose.

Well, I have Ohio State winning the whole thing, which killed me because I arbitrarily hate Ohio State because I'm from Michigan.  But, you have to do what you have to do to win. And unlike in previous years where I had some real money on my bracket, these past few years I have only had them in contests on websites like ESPN and what not.  So, if my bracket ends up being REALLY accurate, I could win some serious dough.  Chances of it happening are extremely low, but it's not about winning.  It's about being right.  To say that I was very accurate means something, at least.  I mean, right?

So I'll be watching copious amounts of college basketball for the foreseeable future.  Good luck on your brackets, everybody!