Nice guys finish last

I hate being the nice guy.  Yeah, I know, I’ve referred myself as an asshole on occasion, but I’m a nice guy.  I respect those around me as long as they’re not doing anything to me.  When I’m turning onto another street, I avoid crossing the turn lane if nobody is there so the light doesn’t change, I don’t cut lines, I let people out when I know it’s hard to get out on that road, I’ve offered to help people with their groceries.  I’ve taken grocery carts from handicap people outside stores so they don’t have to push them all the way back in. Just yesterday, one of the assholes I’m going to mention below dropped something on the sidewalk outside her apartment, her hands were full so I picked it up and handed it to her.  I hold doors for people, I’ve watched people drop cash and told them so they didn’t lose it.  My kids are not allowed to run down the halls or play music loudly at all because we are in the upstairs apartment.  I’m always on time, usually early, because it’s disrespectful to make someone wait on you.  I’m a nice guy.

Unlike these true life assholes who never respect anybody and think they are above everyone else.

          

I included a compass to make it easier to explain these assholes.  You see the orange blocking half of the road and then a little further down the whole road?  Those are blocking the road for construction, it is completely blocked off, you can’t get through but the problem actually lies on the north/south road.  You see the train tracks that run across it (black), there are constantly trains crossing it.  They run into a huge rail yard just north of the picture so when they cross, they usually cross very slowly.  There is a stop light at the corner and it lets one side go at a time.  The cars coming from the north get pretty backed up at certain times of the day.  If you want to go straight, it may take you a couple light changes to get through the intersection and your chances of hitting a train rise with each minute you sit there.  So while all the good people sit in line and wait their turn, the assholes will get in the right lane, turn right (heading west) then do a u-turn so they can turn right again back onto the road they were just on.  They do it when there is a train blocking the tracks as well, they basically jump the line.

I’m the nice guy who sits in the line waiting to go through the light, I take my turn like most everyone else.  Or I’ll go left to the underpass but it’s a few miles down the road.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thought about doing the u-turn thing, and I wouldn’t think twice about doing it.  It’s not the law that scares me, it’s the fact that it isn’t fair to everybody else if I get to cut the line.

This happens all over the place.  People getting in turn lanes and going straight beating out traffic.  People who stay in lanes that are ending all the way to the last second until they have to force their way over.  People are assholes, put them behind 2 tons of steel and they think they become invincible assholes.

Here at our apartment, I deal with assholes on a daily basis.  I have the luxury of calling them my neighbors.  Whether it be my neighbor in the next building and his stereo, the lady below us with her 50 kids who slam the door every time they go in and out, to the special breed of asshole who lives right next to us.  We deal with their stereo on a weekly basis but what’s worse is what you see above.  Those first 4 parking spots are marked handicapped.  The blue Tahoe and the black Monte Carlo belong to them, and they are far from handicapped.  Unless not knowing how to wear your pants at your waist is considered being handicapped now.  The apartment below them is a group home of sorts with 3 handicapped individuals who have a rotation of nurses that come in and stay with them.  They deserve the handicap spots (the other 2 cars are theirs), not the asshole neighbors.  The really pathetic part is that we have a handicap placard for Cheri and even she refuses to park in the spaces because the nurses need them.

Apparently they think if they destroy the handicap sign, then it’s ok.  I couldn’t tell you how many times they’ve replaced it.  I’m so sick of living here, I need a house out in the middle of nowhere with no one around.  I’m really starting to hate people.

I want to say I believe that you get what you deserve.  But I’ve seen a lot of good people get hurt who didn’t deserve it.  I’ve also seen more assholes continually getting away with being assholes with no retribution.  It gets old.  I’m a nice guy and I’m trying to raise my kids to be the same, but I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.  The way this world is, the assholes continue to take from the nice people.  Maybe I should raise my kids to be assholes so they can survive this world.

Dating Netflix

I got on Netflix to see if they had a certain show that I wanted to check out.  I ended up forgetting what I was going to look up before I got it loaded up so I can’t tell you the show or if they have it.  But apparently Netflix is having just as many issues as I am.

I circled the date that I apparently viewed movies that I never heard of and at the bottom right, you can see today’s date.  Those movies may have actually been watched, just not by us.  Apparently Netflix got a jump start on drinking for the weekend.

And while I have you here, I was at work talking with a friend of mine who is fighting cancer.  We were talking about his blood being so thin because of the treatments.  He said that if he cuts himself shaving, it bleeds for 5 hours.  My sensitive side came out and I said “Your periods must be rough.”

I’m an asshole.  I can’t help it.  But he and I usually give it to each other so it’s all in jest.  It’s mainly for shock factor on the people listening in, their faces are priceless.

WWW Wednesdays #22

I haven’t done one of these in a little while and it was a slow week at work last week so I finished quite a few books compared to my normal.

To play along, I’m supposed to answer 3 easy questions.

What are you currently reading?

Bad Wolf by Tim McGregor

I’m a little over half way, it’s been pretty good so far.  I haven’t read a book about werewolves in awhile.

What did you recently finish reading?

Predation by SJ Parkinson

I enjoyed this book.  It was a little wordy at times but I still enjoyed it.  It took place in space in another galaxy, kind of like Star Trek but it had more of a war aspect that I liked as well.  The humans are fighting with the Drakk’har, who are a kind of a reptile type creature but our forces are moving in on their planet that they make their ships.  We have ground forces as well as a battleships so there are a lot of characters to follow plus we get to know the alien forces as well.

Darkness Breaks (Darkness Falls #2) by Jessica Sorensen

This is the second book in the series.  Kayla is still trying to figure out who she is and how she is supposed to save the world.  Good action and I still enjoy the characters plus we learn all new things about the Others as well as Kayla.

Zomblog (Zomblog #1) by TW Brown

I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy a book written in journal type entries but with everything going on really makes you forget it was written that way.  It was a little odd when the main character dies considering he was writing the journal but someone else picks it up and continues it.  I think this is probably a pretty accurate book about what would happen if zombies took over.  We’d end up fighting ourselves more than them.

Zomblog II (Zomblog #2) by TW Brown

The 2nd book picks up right where the first one leaves off.  As we get further away from the day the zombies take over, we meet more survivors and more crazy people.  While there are a few communities that are trying to rebuild like normal, there are others that take a step back from humanity.  I’m looking forward to getting the 3rd book in the series.

The Man Who Built the World by Chris Ward

A man goes home for his sister’s funeral only to be in a battle of his past that he has blocked out.  As he learns more and more about the father he hates, he learns more and more about the mother he loved and the sister he feared.  This was a good book, it kept me reading every chance I could get at work.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Synthetic:  Rise of the Siren by Shonna Wright

This may change because I have a library app and I’m waiting on a book to become available and since I can only keep the 2 weeks, I will switch over to that before this one.

If you want to join on WWW Wednesdays, click the logo on top or go to http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/ and leave a comment.

Music Monday’s #5

Welcome to the next edition of Music Mondays.  It’s pretty basic, I take a playlist and put it on random, and post what comes up.

• Playlist – “Anything & Everything”
• Description – Anything from Christian to Rock, Rap to Country, Classical to 80’s.  It goes from the 1960’s to current.  Pretty much anything and everything that I like.
• Number of songs on the playlist – 1,340 songs (up 16 songs from last post)

 

1. Get the Party Started (P!nk)
2. Dirty Minds (Here Come The Mummies)
3. Can You Feel the Love Tonight (Elton John)
4. When the Children Cry (White Lion)
5. By Myself (Linkin Park)
6. Run to You (Whitney Houston)
7. When I Think of You (Janet Jackson)
8. For My Growing (Mylon & the Broken Heart)
9. Head Like A Hole (Nine Inch Nails)
10. Little Deuce Coupe (the Beach Boys)
11. I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) (the Proclaimers)
12. This Blood (Carman)
13. Every Now and Then (Crumbacher)
14. Baby, Baby (Amy Grant)
15. I’ll Make Love to You (Boyz II Men)
16. Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm (C+C Music Factory)
17. Destined To Win (ETW)
18. Hey Jealousy (Gin Blossoms)
19. Are You Gonna Go My Way (Lenny Kravitz)
20. Citizen/Soldier (3 Doors Down)

You see I’ve added 16 from the last post (2 weeks ago).  Those were mainly songs from the Thompson Twins, Cars and Wilson Pickett.  Plus I added a song each from Ugly Kid Joe, Florida Georgia Line, Enya, Stryper and Bruno Mars.

I’ve decided to randomly choose an artist from above and show all the songs I have on my playlist.  Exciting stuff I know.

I used Random.org, put the numbers 1-20 and click random 3 times, the number 15 came up at the top which would be Boyz II Men in accordance to the list above.

I have 8 songs from Boyz II Men on my playlist.  I listened to Cooleyhighharmony all the time when I was growing up.  Although, End of the Road and In the Still of the Nite weren’t actually on that album.  I believe I bought End of the Road as a single and In the Still of the Nite was on the flip side of the cassette.  I went through a R&B and some rap phase for awhile, I still like some of it but I have grown to think most of it sounds the same.

Track – Believe in Love

Arist – Russ Taff

Russ Taff was one of my favorite (still is) Christian artist.  He does a multitude of different types of music from rock to country to old gospel.  He even did a great Christmas album in jazz.  The song above is one of my favorites of his and is also from my favorite album by him.

Coming Soon

I’ve been a slacker, I haven’t posted in a week.  Granted it was my 5 day work week so I don’t generally post as much but I didn’t even do any of my weekly posts (Music Mondays, WWW Wednesdays, or Stacking the Shelves) not even a Flashback Fridays.  (How’s that for a plug of some of my posts?).  Nothing really went down this past week.  It’s cooled off some so work hasn’t been as miserable.  Kids are getting ready to start their new school next week.  Trevor has his birthday party coming up on Tuesday.  We go back to the bank to see if we can get a loan for a house in a couple of weeks.  We are at wits end living here so that really needs to happen.  I’m also in the process of fighting off a cold, stupid runny nose and stuffiness.

I’ve gotten behind on my Feedly again due to the fact that work put in a web filter so I can no longer access the internet on my Kindle.  So since I’m not keeping up with my blog reading anymore, I’ve been reading books instead and on some days, have read a whole book before I left work.  Speaking of books, my library has finally gotten Kindle books to loan out.  I’m not all that impressed with what they have available but I haven’t searched extensively on it yet either.  I’ve just checked a few main authors that I like and there wasn’t much available (Kim Harrison, Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Jim Butcher).  I did put World War Z on hold so when it is available, I’ll get to read it.  I heard the book is way better than the movie anyways, which is usually the case.  Apparently the book will come to your Kindle and then in 2 weeks, poof, it disappears.

So as you can see, you haven’t missed anything.  I’ll try to post a little more regular this week.  I already have an idea to add to Music Mondays tomorrow.  I’m also almost done with another My Kind of Humor post and another post so I haven’t been completely gone.

Facebook crap

Does anybody else use the personal lists on Facebook?  And by personal, I mean lists that you created, not the ones that they’ve created for you.  Mine are listed in the picture below, to the right.

I have 4 lists but I only actually use 2 of them.

Family - I use the Family list which as you can probably guess, is all my family members.

Current Friends - I also use the Current Friends which is my current friends, but it also has more.  When I “like” a page and it’s something that I want to see what they post, I add it to that list as well.  Any of my classmates that I actually communicate with, I add them here as well.

Page Alerts - Let’s face it, we all “like” some pages but we don’t really care what it’s about.  Sometimes your supporting a friend, sometimes it’s humorous but it’s nothing you need to see again.  We’ve all “liked” band, tv, or movie pages because we liked them but we really don’t need to see the news associated with it.  I rarely check this one, as you can tell by the 547 unread posts.

Classmates – I approve anybody that graduated from my high school the same year as I did, way back in 1991.  There was over 500 graduates in my class so there were a lot of kids that I knew a little bit and some I didn’t know at all.  When I “friended” my wife, she was in this list that I never check.  But she commented on some stuff I posted and I moved her over to Current Friends.  Of course, now she’s in my Family list.  But I check this list the least, usually only when I’m online and I’m really bored.

As you can see, I never use my home feed which is the feed that comes up when you first log in to Facebook.  As a matter of fact, my bookmark for Facebook goes right to the Family list.  I loved this concept and I was using it before Facebook came up with their automatic lists.  But now, apparently because I made my own personal lists, I have to be punished.  Not only does it not show me everything that I have put in my lists, like it does the home feed, it only shows me what it wants to show me.  I put them in MY lists, why would I want YOU to decide what I see.  I set notifications for everybody that I want to see.  It gives me a crap load of notifications on some days but it’s the only way I can see who I want to see.

Now, on top of them controlling my lists.  Now I get these stupid ads.

They are all over the place and they are right in my list feeds.  Sometimes back to back, sometimes there will be only a post or 2 between them but they are all over.  I don’t play any games on Facebook to begin with so why would I care what my friends are playing.  Now if I went over to my home feed, there are none of these.  So like I said, they punish me for creating my own feeds.  I’m waiting for the Social Fixer app I use (which is also why my background is black) to come up with a way to get rid of these because it pisses me off.  I probably wouldn’t mind it if I was looking for games to play, but I don’t play any games so it’s just a hindrance.

FORE!

Went golfing this morning, for the first time since my cousin was up last year.  My brother has invited me a few times in the last month or so but I always refused because of my back issues.  Well, when he asked this week I said screw it, I’m going.  I’ll drug up if I have to.  I took some ibuprofen before I got there and headed out.  There were 4 of us and we were only playing 9 holes.  The first guy (brother’s friend) gets up, crushes it but I goes right into the fairway next to us.  My brother gets up and crushes it as well, also to the right.  The next guy (brothers friends friend) gets up and barely hits it.  Now it’s my turn.  I’m nervous because I’m not sure how well my back will allow me to swing.  Not to mention, this is only the 2nd time I’ve ever tried to use an actual driver.  I’ve always used a driving iron because I could never get the hang of hitting one but my driving iron had broke and I couldn’t find another one on short notice.  So I get up there, line up and smoke it right down the middle of the fairway.  It hurt my back a little but not bad.  Everybody goes up to take their next shots and some their third.  I get up to my ball, pull out an iron and put the ball within 5 feet of the hole.  I was extremely happy, I thought this was going to be one of those good days.  I ended up 2 putting for a +1 on the first hole.  Then it was all downhill from there.  I never saw the scorecard, but I was probably around 50 for 9 holes.  I’d hit a great shot followed by a couple of crappy ones.  I had a good time regardless of how I played.  I only threw my club once which says a lot.

I used to golf quite a bit in high school.  I even tried out for the golf team once (I sucked).  But the clubs I play with now are the same ones I played with back then.  Although I have picked up a 3 wood and a putter.  I had a friend who was a golf pro at a shop in college so he was a pretty good golfer and he would give me tips on how to improve so I was a decent enough back then.  Never a scratch golfer by any means, but decent enough, especially for someone who never uses a driver.  I generally shot in the upper 80’s, lower 90’s.  But I loved to play and still do, but finances played a lot on why I quit playing as well.  It’s not a cheap sport, especially now when my fat ass refuses to walk instead of getting a cart.  It costs us $17 a person this morning and that was only 9 holes.  This was an out of the way course as well, if you want to go to one of the nicer courses, it’ll cost even more.

My brother is talking about playing every week, we’ll see if I’ll be able to do that or not but I can go every so often at least.  It would be nice to be able to afford it since I now have days off from work and actually have the time to do so.

Tonight, we are heading for Portage to watch my nephew play for a chance at the Little League World Series.  They are down to the final 7 teams and are in a double elimination tournament.  They won their first game last night and play again tonight and more games Saturday and a final game on Sunday if they keep winning.

My Kind of Humor #11

Time for another edition of My Kind of Humor.  These were all posted on my Random Thoughts Facebook page at one time or another.

I’m behind on these, they were posted awhile ago.

People are stupid, but the creator of this card was a genius.

Awkward!

Do you see it?  So is he or isn’t he?  Or is he confused at what the word means?  Or is it a regrettable tattoo?  Does it mean something different in Texas?

This explains so much.

Ha, not a huge fan of Will Ferrell’s movies, but he is hilarious.  And Twilight sucks, a good combination.

I had actually posted this on my Facebook page before, but I love it.  How do people even see this?  If I was looking at it, it would just be 2 boxes.

Do you see it?  Yikes!  It’s embarrassing when a woman’s penis is bigger than yours.

Pretty much Cheri and I’s thoughts exactly.  That would be why we didn’t go to our 20th reunion 2 years ago.

The perfect response to WWJD.

I hate to let out a man’s bathroom secret, but this really happens.

Randomness #16

For those of you asking, which is nobody, Samantha lost her last All-Star game and was eliminated.  But before I get to that, I have to tell you what happened when I got there.  I drove Cheri’s car because I had very little gas in mine and was trying to make it to Friday (it was on Thursday).  She has to be there an hour before the game starts so I drive out early and stay there and then my mom picks up Cheri and they show up at game time.  Anyways, when we got there, we got out of the car and went to the trunk to get her bat bag and my chair.  It was still locked, then I realized it was still running.  CRAP!  It was the first time I’ve locked my keys in the car in probably 20 years (I used to do it a lot when I was in school).  So Samantha had to do her pre-game practice in her slide on sandals and borrow the coach’s glove.  I felt like a dumb ass sitting on the bleachers with all the other parents knowing what I did.  Had I taken my car, you can’t lock the keys when the keys are in the ignition.  Stupid car.

But back to the game, it wasn’t pretty either, her team only came up with 2 hits and I’m not so sure it was their pitcher.  Our girls just weren’t into the game, at all.  Samantha only had 1 at bat and she grounded out.  I was still happy for her, she made All-Stars and she loves to play but she is done for the year.

I’ve taken some time to update a couple of my pages above.  I caught myself up on the book page (although I will be taking some time in the future to change the layout) and I also updated my Social Media page, I deleted the GetGlue and FourSquare sections.  I don’t use either of them anymore.  GetGlue I stopped using when I updated the app on my phone and one of it’s permissions was to take photos and videos without my knowledge.  FourSquare I wouldn’t mind using, if more people did.  On the rare occasion (usually Walgreens) there would be a discount for checking in but I just got tired of using it.  I didn’t have many friends on it and only one local so it was kind of pointless to even know where those friends were.  I thought it would be fun to be close to someone and search them out, and surprise them.  But with nobody in the area, that really wasn’t going to happen.

I need to update the Track of the Day (I actually need to post more of those) and I wish I could add to the Published Content page but I haven’t come up with anything to write and publish.

Our foreman’s carry a cordless phone at work.  On the weekends, since the office personnel isn’t there, all phone calls are routed over the intercom so he knows when someone is calling.  While I was on my break Sunday, he came in and sat with me for a few minutes until they needed him on the line.  He walked out of the breakroom and left the phone on the table.  So I called the work number and listened to it ring over the intercom.  Since he didn’t have the phone on him, he had to run to the shipping office to answer it.  Apparently he didn’t realize he left the phone in the breakroom as he ran right past it to get to the office.  When he answered, I played stupid.  I basically repeated what he said.  He answered with the company name so I asked if it was the company name.  He said yes, this is his name, I asked if this was his name.  I told him my name was his name.  He eventually got mad and hung up on me.

After my break was over, I walked into the shipping office and handed him his phone and started repeating our conversation.  He proceeded to tell me that he called the cops and reported a prank call.  We argued, he kept to his story, I told him he was full of shit.  As I was walking back to my line, my phone rang.  It was a local number and I figured it was my foreman and he was going to act like a cop so I just sent it to my voicemail.  When I got upstairs, I sent Cheri a text message, gave her my foreman’s phone number and told her to copy and paste it to him.  He wouldn’t have her number in his phone.

I thought it was pretty funny but he never responded and I didn’t see him for a few hours until I was leaving.  I asked him if he got it, he said yes and asked if I got his phone call.  Apparently he had a friend call me to pretend to be the cops so I wouldn’t recognize the number.  We both think alike.

Tonight (Thursday) is Samantha’s birthday party at the local roller rink.  She’s been asking for one for years but we never had the money.  I don’t this year either but my mom offered to help pay for it so she’s finally getting it.  I’m debating on whether or not to skate because of my back.  I’ll be ok as long as I don’t crash which I don’t do often but it happens on occasion.  Last time we went was 2008.  I have some videos on my YouTube channel if you want to check those out.  There’s nothing special on my channel, mainly family stuff, which is why I don’t advertise it.

Cheri had Samantha help her with the cupcakes and cake.  It was a bonding experience that I know Samantha loved and I loved seeing it.  Their relationship has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 6 months or so.  The kids are much more comfortable around her.  I’ve always let it just grow rather than force it.  I’ve never told them to hug or kiss her (they do everybody else when leaving) and I’ve never told them to tell her goodnight.  They do both on occasion, not all the time, but more and more.  I know theEx has told them to kiss and hug the JackAss and Samantha says she doesn’t like it at all.  She actually complains about him a lot to us now but I don’t know if she’s just doing that because she knows we don’t like him or if she actually doesn’t like him.  I don’t think she does, but what do I know.

Track – No Se Tu

Artist – Luis Miguel

Holy crap!  It’s been over 4 months since I did one of these.  I have a bunch saved and I’ve been forgetting to throw some up here so I started where I left off.  If you know this song, congrats, and you probably speak Spanish.  This song is completely in Spanish, and no, I don’t speak it.  This song was in the movie “Speechless” a number of times.  It played along with the video and it’s supposed to be a love song.  I had a friend translate for me way back when I first heard it and I remember liking it.  I don’t remember what exactly it’s about now, but I still like it.

Music Monday’s #4

Welcome to the next edition of Music Mondays.  It’s pretty basic, I take a playlist and put it on random, and post what comes up.

• Playlist – “Anything & Everything”
• Description – Anything from Christian to Rock, Rap to Country, Classical to 80’s.  It goes from the 1960’s to current.  Pretty much anything and everything that I like.
• Number of songs on the playlist – 1,324 songs

 

1. Final Days (DC Talk)
2. Walk (Foo Fighters)
3. Shine (Collective Soul)
4. Somebody’s Gotta Feel This (Kid Rock)
5. Hero (Mariah Carey)
6. Thunder Beach (Crumbacher)
7. The First Cut is the Deepest (Sheryl Crow)
8. Wasting My Time (Default)
9. In My Life (Allies)
10. Ice Cream Man (Van Halen)
11. Hey Jimmie (Geoff Moore & the Foundations)
12. I Don’t Want to Lose You (REO Speedwagon)
13. Open Arms (Journey)
14. Sparks Fly (Taylor Swift)
15. Breath (Breaking Benjamin)
16. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
17. Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh)
18. You Are My Sunshine (Norman Blake)
19. Babe (Styx)
20. Destined to Win (ETW)

If you notice the number a songs, it went up approximately 50 songs because I’ve added some more.  In that addition, the majority of those were some more christian music that I listened to growing up.  I also ran across the “O Brother, Where Art Thou” soundtrack and added 10 songs from it, I loved that movie.  That also explains the song above at number 18.  I even added a few songs from the 1970’s that I happened to see.  I really should stop playing around on Spotify, my playlist is huge.