Time Traveling......

" Where we are going there are no roads" -Doc Emmitt Brown, this quote was from Back to the Future one of my favorite movies of all time, the premise alone of being able to get into the token 1980's flashy car powered by the flux capacitor and just journey anywhere in time that you want is AMAZING!! I mean who wouldn't love to go to the future or head back in time and buy Microsoft when it first came out, damn the space time continuum I want to be rich!! ....granted in this movie, although enjoyable they ended up in situations that I wouldn't consider fun like his parents high school dance or in the future to help out his kids.....very lame!! If it was me I would make it like a history project come to life, I would go hang out with J.C. around year 0, I would go 100 years in the future just to see if there's a statue of my likeness erected anywhere, things like that........

Unfortunately we can all day dream about actually doing this in that there's no way that this could actually happen, unfortunately......although a chemistry teacher in high school showed us a way that it potentially could happen, but ended up shooting it down scientifically(I don't remember exactly how) ...... so as much as one can day dream about it we have to live each day second by second , minute by minute and that's the thing about life that's great you never know what's going to happen with your future and you can never speed up your life to show it to you, your future is up to you......

In a recent column I wrote about the 4 levels or Red Bull & Vodka, and I wrote about all the different levels and how I would get to each level, now this column has become a thermometer for when I go out with my friends, like I can be like K where are you, shell be like L2, or Mike where are you L3.....it works for us and everyone knows how drunk they are based on the varying degree of drunkenness.......

Now my column started out talking about how time travel is impossible, but I think I somehow traveled through time.....it's the only possible explanation for how I got from Level 1 to Level 5 (new level) and not remembering any of it the night we went out for my Birthday.....My birthday was about 3 weeks ago, and after talking to many eyewitnesses I have finally got enough information about myself for a blog about how I time traveled( not blacked out) from L1 to L5 .....so without further ado my bday night.............

LEVEL 1

Level 1 starts out innocently enough at Dos Caminos, I'm meeting K there before we go out to grab a bite and a drink and have a good time, so I get there a few minutes earlier, I'm a birthday whore so I feel it necessary to mention to the bartender that it's my Birthday....I end up ordering a Vodka 7 while I'm waiting, the bartender ends up giving me 95% vodka 5% 7 , its my bday so I drink it, about 10 minutes go by and K finally comes in from her geek conference and she's packing heat, she has her pocket protector on, a scanner, a portable mouse, a server, and I think Bill Gates but I'm not sure the night was fuzzy.......we proceed to the table and somehow after pleading with her all day to do shots and her telling me repeatedly "no" , she ends up ordering Patron shots when the waiter arrives to take our order.......which led to another shot, and then another drink....by the time we left there I was moving into Level 2, I was her own personal model as she was snapping shots of me making stupid faces, probably got a solid 30 pictures in a 2 block walk.......

Level 2

So now we get to the bar, I greet Ray the only friend I know who can make it to a party around the time scheduled and we proceed to get a drink........now somehow at this point the time traveling experience began ......because all I remember at this point was saying hi to a few people coming in, doing a few shots, saying good bye to K, and then talking to Nicole about something which I don't remember............................Now at this point of the night I get into my Delorean and just time travel to Level 5........at this point I don't know what happened, there were many eyewitness reports stating that I was just doing 5-10 shots I don't know what happened I literally traveled through time 2 hrs ahead.....

Level 5(Never Recommended)

After my journey through time I ended up with my head outside of a cab window with Ray next to me, without going into details I was very sick.....my buddy Ray become my own personal savior and re-enacted my senior year of college with him dragging me back from Ketch 22 North when he was pledging....Ray made sure I was good even put a big pot underneath me just in case and then headed out........Now this is called Level 5 because I'm very very sick , K just called me I mumbled something to her and hung up.....just totally not good....at 5am I wake up, I'm shaking and I realize it must be because I traveled through time, my body wasn't used to it....I don't recommend it to anyone.................

So what have I learned through this journey through time and space, well first off you don't need a Delorean, a flux capacitor, or Doc Brown, you just need to do many shots in a quick amount of time, so many that you don't remember doing them....it's either that or I'm secretly convinced K dropped a roofie in my drink or maybe I tried dropping one in her drink and I goofed.....I just don't remember.......the one thing I know is that finally at the age of 29 , for my bday I was given the gift of time travel..too bad I don't remember it......alright on that note I must begin my weekend....

Everyone enjoy the 3 day w/e

TP

Obama Bin Biden????

First off I want to publicly state that I'm interested in politics, but I'll never have a bumper sticker on the back of my go kart supporting candidate A or candidate B, It is something I'm interested in but don't really pay too much attention to, now saying that I don't consider myself to belong to any party, I think anyone who is too one sided has issues, I believe you need to be in the middle which I am, if I had to classify myself as something it probably would be a moderate Republican as the whole tree hugger shit doesn't fly with me and the Republicans don't want to tax me as much as the Democrats ....... but I refuse to go along with the Bible Belt Republican South, I mean I am under 30, there is some Liberal in me...........

So many are you wondering TP whats up with the Title?? Well I don't know if I'm the only person saying this but the Democratic candidate is Barack Hussein Obama, seems like a really nice guy but if this was Hollywood he would never get the role.......I mean seriously look at his name HUSSEIN OBAMA!! Shit aren't these names pretty damn close to America's arch enemies within the last 20 years??? Are people in the Middle East laughing at us right now, It's like if Iran got a new leader who's name was Mohammad Bush Cheney...Seriously WTF!! .........anyways it's just something that caught my eye, and it made me think are their people out there who might vote for George Bush the Third because this guy has such an awful name, would people in the 1940's vote for a guy named Michael Stalin Heitler?? I don't understand why I haven't heard anyone bring this angle up..................

Now as bad as this guy's name is there's a kicker........I'm out in Vegas this weekend at a bachelor party, I stopped in to grab lunch I turn around and look up at the TV, and there's a major announcement about Obama announcing his choice for VP and as they make the announcement on CNN i saw on the bottom line OBAMA BIDEN.........and after years of watching '"Breaking News" with the name Osama bin laden in it, my eyes saw what they wanted to see and I was like Holy Shit , Osama isnt hiding in Afghanistan, he's running for President of the US.......now I'm at the point of my life where nothing surprises me, so tonight at the D.N.C. or after he wins in November if he pulls off a mask and out comes a big scruffy beard and he starts shouting PRAISE TO ALLAH, PRAISE THE JIHADISTS, remember you heard it here first, dont be shocked........

Alright on that note I just had to throw a litte quick hit blog together, im still in recovery mode from Vegas.......

TP

Musings about CVS....

Ok so my loyal readers have been giving me heat about not blogging enough, and I do apologize but between my bday and bachelor parties, getting sick for a week, getting others sick, feeling guilty about getting others sick and just general sheer laziness I haven't had a chance to write till today......So my latest idea for a blog happened around last week when I was in Rite Aid which has now become one of my 10 favorite stores and for that reason I can never just go in there for a toothbrush and not end up leave the store without spending less than 40$. I find myself making adult decisions like is it worth it spending the extra 2$ for the deodorant with a picture on it......anyways Rite Aid, CVS, Duane Reade to me they are all the same store and for the purpose of this column we are going with CVS because its shorter to write.......


So here I am last week buying 5 of the most random items in the store that really have nothing to do with each other, ill give you three.....Condoms, water balloons, and a sympathy card when it got me thinking I wonder if the average CVS worker even thinks about stuff like how these items relate to each other and what is this guy using them for when he's scanning my items, it got me wondering if they are brainwashed into not paying attention to the items the customers are purchasing.... I know personally I couldn't do that I like to think too much.....I would see a girl come in buying condoms, I would be like wow she's a pirate hooker...I would see some guy coming in on a weekly basis for his cream and would be completely skived out by that.... So it got me thinking are these workers robotic???? Or are they actually human and make fun of their customers behind their back?? I wonder if they secretly sneer when they see anal wart guy come in?? How can they keep a straight face?? Seriously....how??


I truly believe if I ever worked there I would be disgusted by the human race, I don't think I would be able to ever shake someones hand ever again, so I wonder how bright are the workers there......... I know by me we have Bubbles, the girl with the way too tight shirt on who's dressed up in Rainbow Brite colors......we have Doris the 70 year old grandmother who's wearing lots of CVS flair and loves her job.......A side note about Doris, how embarrassing is buying a pack of condoms or anything sexual with this lady behind the counter, I mean I totally have my head down when I'm buying stuff with her behind the counter even if its deodorant and I usually end up buying two other things to sandwich it between it so I'm not embarrassed......the third person in there is the Pothead high school kid wearing his name tag upside down who's Dad is making him work there ......and finally there's the angry woman behind the counter who gets mad because she has to break a 20$ bill for a pack of gum and gives you a sneer because of it......besides the fact of this winning team, for some reason there is always 7 people working there but one person actually working behind the counter and I'm usually stuck on a 10 person deep line behind the 80 year old lady with blue hair who's stocking up for the year and paying for each one of her 400 items with coupons......ugh


I also wonder is it more awkward for the customer or the worker??.....I know I can never work there because I would spend half my time like a kid with Tourette's. There would be absolutely no filter between my brain and my mouth, I literally believe I would say stuff like why do you need all those condoms or what's up with that cream.........it would irk me, another thing while having this conversation is what happens with these workers in 10 years, I know that they can never be detectives or reporters because they don't ask any questions, do they end up working in the DMV(which is a whole other column in itself) where they just go about their job without questioning or wondering why?? These are all things I want to know.........I might have to stop by and ask Bubbles out to some coffee tonight for journalistic purposes...............




Anyways on that note I'm out sorry about the delay


TP

Things that just push me over the edge

By all accounts, I'm a pretty calm, relaxed, easy going guy who wouldn't hurt a fly but every now and again their are just certain things that can bring out my inner Hulk, where I literally turn green and sometimes just snap. I think we all have these breaking points, some people work stresses them out to the point of snapping, or maybe you have road rage and getting cut off puts you in a serious foul mood. With me however nothing gets me more angry than dealing with people who have a complete utter lack of common sense and dealing with those phone operation things, patience is definitely not one of my virtues as I've been get older............ so I get my blog ideas basically from everyday conversations , I have a friend who just switched over from Verizon to get an I-Phone which led to the pre-requisite convo about how frustrating it is going into one of these stores to discuss anything what so ever, it can really make you crazy talking about phone plans, new phones, etc.......all of this can push you to have the inner Hulk come out......so without further ado, here's 3 stories I'm sure that we all have gone through that I would like to share with my audience................

1) The Verizon Store-

This story happens to be a recent one, around February, I and my girlfriend at the time headed over to the Verizon store to look into a family plan for her family. They have a family operated business and we're looking into possibly getting everyone on the same plan to cut costs, etc......plus on top of that she had a Verizon gift card that I had given her for XMAS knowing that she was looking to get a new phone(yes I'm a very generous guy with gifts ;) ).......so anyways we get there and we are playing around with phones and then we begin talking to our sales associate Jose, really nice guy and on top of that he's bilingual!!........so amazing as it is the fact that Jose can speak two languages there was one little problem, his lack of common sense. First off, she was looking to upgrade her phone, but her plan hadn't expired yet(it was 3 weeks away), her phone was dying constantly, and she was coming in offering a good amount of business (5 person plan).....so right off the bat, lack of common sense that she would have to wait 3 weeks when she was in the store today to give her the phone on the new contract price instead of the ticket price which is a 200$ difference....very dumb!! and 2) this is what killed me, when we were going through the pricing options, our buddy Jose was trying to explain about the 8% off you receive for doing this plan, so that's all well and good that I figured in my head if we make it 299$ you get 8% off, figure about 30$ off a month but no according to Jose, I was wrong and he begins to explain that each phone you get you get 8% off each one, so 5 phones would be 40%!!!.......so now I'm sitting there and literally uttered the words "No way Jose"!! .......I knew from taking basic math that he was completely off, so after uttering those words I took the pen from him and was like you're messing this all up, I go Jose pal, if I get 30 people on the plan do you pay us 140% ??? which made our bilingual buddy look at me like I told him the secret to life.....need less to say Jose was way off, but anyways on that note, I don't know if she ever got on the family plan because dealing with Jose was enough for one day and I don't believe she became a Verizon customer..........can you hear me now????

2) Access-A-Ride-- This story happened to me about 6 years ago with a city funded service called Access-a-ride. Now Access a ride is a great thing, for those who don't know its a system set up for senior citizens and disabled people who have a hard time getting around. The premise is phenomenal you call up give them a time and a destination anywhere in NYC and they charge you one dollar. All sounds great right, well dealing with them, especially for me ........ is defintely not great....So the story goes like this.... My grandmother was living in the city and used to take the Access a ride to visit us in Staten Island, now at the time unfortunately my Mother was in the hospital and my nerves were frayed to begin with. So for those who don't know in Staten Island, there is a Staten Island hospital North and a S.I. Hospital South.......now not only is my mom sick, but my grandmother was slowly losing her mind due to old age.... So about 2 hours before they were to pick her up at the hospital I called the service up just to double check if she gave them the right hospital, call it intuition but she gave them the wrong hospital. So I mentioned to the lady on the phone that she had made a mistake and is there anything they can do to re-route the bus to pick her up at the right destination? Her answer is NO!, so then I ask for her supervisor and the supervisor calmly re-iterates to me that once an address is told over the phone it cannot be changed no matter what!!.........so now I'm flustered about the sheer lunacy of that! That literally I can't call up 5 minutes later tell them I made a mistake, they would still send the car to the original destination, mind boggling right?? It gets worse......I calmly mention that she is stressed as we all are and if they can physically contact the driver and let him know the situation it would be great, they mention they can but they won't.........so now I'm flipping...... I tell the lady exactly this word for word "So you're driver is going to come over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, pass by the hospital my grandmother is at, continue down the road for 30 minutes, then go to the hospital where my grandmother is not at, wait there for 45 minutes have her not show, then leave without her.....come back past where she is again and head back to the city completely without her.......all while you have the actual ability get in contact with him to prevent this from actually happening ........ her response I'm sorry sir there is nothing we can do......which led to the complete inner hulk coming out because of a)the complete and utter lack of common sense and b) because of everything swirling around in my life......this led to me punching the phone booth almost breaking my hand and cursing this lady out, somehow my mother's friend saved the day and actually got this lady to get the driver to meet my grandmother there....to this day I don't know what she said or how she said it but it worked, needless to say to this day it still makes my blood boil and writing this now I'm actually sweating...........alright I must move to the next thing now or I'm going to break my computer..........

3) Dealing with Dell--

I always usually have had Dell Computers, buying them is simple as usually you call them up, get a nice guy from Texas on the phone, and he helps you build you're computer for you like you're building a Sundae(Yes ill have sprinkles!) ......but nothing is worse than when something goes wrong with your computer!! .........So here you have it, you call up the 1-800 number you get the automated thing, already my blood pressure is raising ..........after 30 minutes of pressing 1 for English, 2 for tech support etc...... and then listening to Yanni while waiting on hold for 10 minutes I'm ready to explode......so now someone picks up and he's answering from India.......ughhh with a really thick accent, I begin to explain my problem, and he's running through the most mundane, simple things like did you shut off your computer, is your computer plugged in, after 20 minutes of dealing with this on the phone I could take it no longer, I just hung up the phone and ended up buying a new computer the next day, I literally couldn't deal with it anymore......my sanity was completely worth the $1,000 for a brand spanking new IBM computer.....I understand the need for cost cutting and outsourcing , etc... but it amazes me how shitty Dell is with their customer service, they really need to do something about this, probably why their stock is cut in half since I stopped buying their products, and I'm sure their are many more people out their like me ................

Alright on that note, I have completely vented enough for a solid month, I'm red in the face and need to cool off, but strangely I feel sort of at peace now that I vented out my problems.......anyways enjoy the weekend!!

TP