After pondering things a bit more, I've decided to drop my idea of a class action lawsuit against the stapler companies. I was influenced in part by the comments left by "Anonymous."
My first inclination was to open a staple repair business. People with oneseys and twoseys would mail their stapler to me and I would fix it with some WD-40 and secret ingredient. And I would do on-site repairs for volume jobs.
But an even better idea came to me - I am going to open up StapleMaster School of Staple Repair. People looking for a staple, er, stable career can be pioneers in this soon-to-be lucrative vocation, earning their CST designation: Certified Stapler Technician.
I figure that's better having a school. If I ran a repair business, it might be hard finding any customers until people caught on to what a useful idea that was. Meanwhile, I can instead charge students fees to become certified and then it's up to them to find a job out there.
Once I get established, then I'll initiate that class action lawsuit. Gotta do things in the right order, you know!
Maybe I will call it United School of Staple Repair instead..
If you are not much of a conversationalist, either by choice or not, but you are forced to go out to dinner with people, here is my advice:
Go to a Chinese restaurant.
The usual one will be so noisy that you won't have to worry about holding up your end of the conversation.
If someone says something to you, you can either (1) pretend you are responding by moving your mouth but not really saying anything; or (2) look at them and tilt one ear towards them and put your hand next to it to signify you can't hear what they are saying.
If you go the first way and the other person leans forward and tells you to speak louder, just keep doing the same thing but look more energetic as you do it. Finally, toss up your hands in exasperation and shake your head from side to side, then point at your neck.
If you go the second route and the other person keeps talking louder and louder, just keep motioning to your ear and frowning, then finally as in the other way above, throw up your hands in exasperation letting them know that no matter how hard you strain, you can't hear them.
Now, this doesn't work if the other person winds up yelling so loud that everyone else in the restaurant stops talking. But that is doubtful.. no one can talk that loud.
I hope that was helpful. Here's an observation I have from countless times dining at Chinese restaurants. Why, when there is a lazy susan on the table, do people put the serving spoons back on the plate so that they are hanging over the edge of the lazy susan?? Then when someone turns it to get a dish, the spoons end up either knocking over someone's glass or else falling off the plate. Yet, 99% of the people still keep doing this. That really bugs me!
Something else that bugs me is when someone takes it upon themself to serve everyone else at the table. They get a spoonful of food from the dish and then lean wayyyy over to the opposite side and have to pretty much toss the food that last little bit of the way in order for it to land on your plate. I know they are just trying to be polite, but why do they do that??? That's why you have a lazy susan on the table!! Some people get up and down so often doing this that it begins to resemble whack-a-mole.
Here's a loud talker:
I did my traditional Saturday morning trip to Costco and managed to get that all done before the rains showed up. Nothing really new to report, though.
Later in the day I had lunch with Katie at an old favorite, Angelo's in Alhambra. When the kids were little we'd take out pizza from there nearly every week. And every week, the same thing: 1/2 pepperoni and olives and 1/2 sausage and olives.
Today we dined in. The pizza has gone up in price since those days but it is still yummy and worth the money. Katie said she was hungry.. I was, too. We ended up ordering a small Angelo's Deluxe.
"Small" over there means a 14" pizza. We also ordered the "thin" crust, something we've never tried before but the regular crust is so filling we thought maybe we could eat more of the pizza if the crust was thinner.
Here's a picture of the pizza by itself, and then so you can gain a perspective on how big it really is, a picture of Katie sitting across from it.
That's no small pizza! Angelo's "small" is bigger than any jumbo deluxe extra large gigantic-size you might find at Pizza Hut or Dominoes or any of those other chains that are poor excuses for pizza. And you can see the toppings are rather plentiful. This is not deep-dish pizza but it weighs more than any other pizza I've ever had... you would think it was inside of a frying pan, it's so heavy.
We managed to eat half (2 slices each) and took the rest in a box. That was one heavy box.. again, just that 1/2 pizza must have weighed more than 3 extra large whole pizzas from any of the chains. The "thin crust" turned out to be about what a regular crust is anywhere else.
Was it good? Oh, yes.. We had our calorie fix for the day but it was worth it.
Here's a song about another health food:
I ran out of staples in my stapler today. I notice that when it gets to the end of the strip of staples, the last two or three tend to come out crooked and it doesn't staple properly.
When I put in a new strip of staples, I always lose the first one because when I close the stapler, it pushes out that first staple, unused.
I looked at the staple box. Each strip has 210 staples. If I lose the last three, and lose the first on the next group, that is a total of 4 staples. That is 1.90476% of the strip that is unusable and goes to waste.
Therefore, it follows that for every dollar we pay for a box of staples, nearly two cents of it goes to waste because we are paying for something we can't use.
Does anyone out there know of a good class-action lawsuit attorney who works on a contingency basis? I think I am on to something here. This could be big. As far as I know, this problem is common to all staplers so we are talking action against every company that makes staples/staplers.
Let's say that this is a billion-dollar industry. We are talking about a potential settlement of $19,047,600 which, after the attorney fees and expenses, would be close to $190,047.60.
I feel this is worth pursuing. Receiving a coupon redeemable for a free strip of staples would be pretty good, and also let the industry know that such things are not to be taken lightly.
So who's in with me?
Perhaps it is just me but I find that there is something strange about the people inhabiting Cheerios television commercials. There are various commercials for their various products and there seems to be a common thread tying them all together. They choose a certain sort of actor that makes me uneasy. These are not normal people!
It's like when Tom Cruise realizes his fellow attorneys are not like he thought they were when he first joined them in The Firm. Or those Twilight Zone episodes where the people of a town turn out not to be what they seem.
It wouldn't surprise me to see some pods hidden behind the props on the set of those commercials. Instead of falling asleep and having the pod take over your being, this change takes place from swallowing a spoonful or two of Cheerios.
I get a bad feeling about these commercials..
I hate the feeling that comes over me when the car won't start.
This morning I got in the car to leave for work. I turned the key in the ignition and right away knew the engine wasn't going to turn over enough to start up.
It was too early to do anything about it since no stores were open, so I decided to work from home today. Since Julie was home, later in the morning I was able to use her car to jump start mine - it still took a long time to start - and then drive to my mechanic. Thankfully I was home when this happened, and Julie was too, so that I didn't need to call AAA.
I dropped off the car and then she brought me back. Later we had an unhealthy lunch at McD after which she dropped me back at the mechanic to pick up my car. I much appreciated the car starting right up when I turned the key this time!
I didn't really miss anything in the office. A couple people weren't there so others had to scramble to cover for them; the outgoing phone lines weren't working; the connection between my computer and work went down for a while; the internet was out at work. Haha.. what a day.
As I drove back home from the mechanic I was thinking now gee, wouldn't it be nice to be able to just go wherever I needed to go during the day? Well, I would hope it wouldn't have to be to the garage or to some other place because something needed fixing, but just the freedom to do something whenever you want to is nice, isn't it?
Actually, I guess it is pretty nice that I was able to elect to work at home and also take care of replacing the battery today. That's a nice degree of freedom right there. But then the more you get, the more you want..
On another note, yesterday a few of us were discussing the difference between teaching and coaching. It was pointed out that a coach doesn't necessarily have to be able to demonstrate the subject matter (like an ice skating coach doesn't have to go on the ice to show what he or she is talking about, or a football coach doesn't have to run a play), whereas a teacher would.
So one guy told us how his wife is a good example. She's never taken out the trash but yet she is excellent at coaching him on how to do it.
Things always feel like they are in place when I am able to do my usual Saturday morning Costco trip. And that's what I did today. Thankfully the rain took a pause while I was there so nothing got wet.
Nothing really interesting to report about but I got a clue that I am getting older and older. I bought a case of paper and just putting it in the cart, then loading it in the car and after getting home, carrying it in the house was a struggle! Now my back hurts. At least it's better; this afternoon I couldn't even stand up straight! How pathetic, lol..
And I am sad to report that today I retired the pair of sandals I wear around the house. I've used them daily since 1998; I remember buying them during our trip to Hawaii, at K-Mart of all places. I think that's pretty good that they lasted nearly 12 years, which probably works out to about a dollar per year.
Why retire them? The left side is starting to leave black marks on the tile and linoleum. I tried cleaning them but that's not it - the material is just deteriorating so there's not much I can do unless I wear a sock over my foot and over the sandal, too.
The other day Julie and I went to McD for lunch. She likes their iced coffee. The one near us has a big sign up over the soda machine announcing that refills are only valid for the same visit. Haha, that's probably there for the same people who fill up their soda cups with onions, ketchup, relish and mustard at Costco and take it home with them.
Anyway, she asked the guy if there were refills on the iced coffee, and he said no, there aren't. I said we should take the empty filet of fish box to him and ask if there were refills for those.
