Open Box Policy

When I got to work this morning, I saw what could quite possibly proof of the impending apocalypse. I'm in the break room 5 minutes before work, making my morning coffee and minding my own business, when the talking head box in the break room assaults me with stupid. You've probably ready that I don't hold a very high view of modern programming. Even when a network manages to produce something of modest value, it is completely destroyed by the sheer dumb by which it is funded and surrounded - the commercials.

I just happened to walk into the break room while Headline News was in a commercial break. I didn't know I could take so much stupid-elemental damage in the time it takes to put my lunch away and brew a cup of coffee... The first commercial was one of those "Have you been injured by..." commercials. You know the kind I'm talking about. The target audience: those who have been injured by those Electro-Muscle Stimulation doodads you can buy on late night infomercials. If you've never heard of them, the idea behind them is that you strap these electrodes to your skin and start administering electric shocks to the underlying muscles. You'd rather buy a machine to work you out, and shock yourself stupid in the process, than do it yourself the old fashioned way. They had several winning case testimonials. The best one was from a guy sitting in a wheelchair, missing chunks of hair and dressed like he was assaulted by Austin Powers' closet, who had won "several millions of dollars." Like he played and won some great Darwinian lottery.

If that wasn't enough to cause an early morning aneurysm, the next one was going to try harder. It was a Nutrisystem ad. These fool spots usually enlist the aid of some easily recognizable celebrity names to give an endorsement. Past testimonials have been provided by Dan Marino and Tori Spelling. Well, there's a new guy in town. He's a Cable Guy. He's Larry the Cable Guy. Git-R-Done, Delta Farce, Witless Protection Larry the Cable Guy. Not that I mind Larry the Cable Guy, in fact I enjoy a lot of his original stand-up. I'm just way more likely to buy a keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon than I am to buy Nutrisystem when he comes up in an ad. He even did the Git-R-Done catch phrase at the end of the ad, just after dropping an armload of prop bowling balls, snapping his fingers at another guy's wardrobe to make it match his own and stating that "Loosin' fity pouns like loosin fi' bowlin' bawls!" My head hurt the rest of the day.

In other news, the surface of the sun called down to San Antonio today and demanded we return their weather. The Vue was supposed to be finished on time today, but (surprise!) it hadn't come out of the paint shop yet. I guess our poor Summer has become the victim of some internal office politics, so the manager cut $100 off our bill to compensate us for the cost of a rental. Which was good, because D would have either needed a her car back or rental for tomorrow's interview. She made the arrangements to pick up the rental, we got the kids and made it to the rental place just after they closed. Lucky for us that they waited.

After dinner and getting children to bed, we made a quick WalMart run for some things that we had unexpectedly come up: D needed some clothing for tomorrow, Clara needed wipes, my car needed some gas and we were looking for FFXI. Umm... Yeah. FFXI for the XBox360. The big compendium package had finally been discontinued, and it took a pretty big price hit, so we decided to finally get it for the 360 upstairs. I had managed to track one down to the Gamestop at the WalMart that we were at, so we went in there to check it out.

They had it, but there was something very disappointing about it. It had been opened. For most games, this doesn't pose a problem to the end consumer. But this game doesn't work like most games. The media inside the case is next to worthless. This game revolves around a content code to function. A code found on the instruction manual. An instruction manual in the case. A case that was clearly opened with an instruction manual that was clearly rifled through. It's like providing someone with a credit card, saying they are responsible for all charges against said card, and then providing the card number to 50 different people. Account theft is bad enough as it is, I don't need to make it easier for people to steal my stuff. As clearly presented as we could make it, for some reason, we could not get anyone to understand this problem. We got one guy tell us that if something was wrong with it we could simply return it. Soooo... Let me get this straight. I'm going to make a trip all the way out here and pay good money for something I know I'm going to have a problem with, only to have to travel all the way back out here and get my money back. That costs me an hour of time and at least a gallon of gas. -.-; No, thanks. I'll order online.

We tried to level BLM that night, but it was nearly impossible to do with all the competition for monsters. Epic waste of a Emperor Ring charge. I resigned to go and take pictures of morbols for zeni. As much as I love pokemon-ing, it was not what I wanted to do with my night...

D has an interview tomorrow. I'll be praying for her, and I know she'll be fantastic at it. Hopefully I'll have a status update on the car as well.