Rants

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Ok about the whole Seattle thing. I have neither the patience nor desire to spout out a long version of this. So here is the condensed Golden Book version for those of the Republican persuasion.

Actually I like Golden Books, used to at least. I should read some now and make sure they aren’t Nazi propaganda material.

Anyway back to the point. I’ll call this the Short and incomplete version of events because someone, whom shall remain nameless was to lazy to blog about them in a timely fashion as the forthnamed events occurred.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the introduction out of the way, on to the center of the Tootsie pop. Have you ever heard about the free tootsie pop story? In the past supposedly if you got a wrapper with an Indian shooting a star on it, you could turn it in for a free tootsie pop. I was never sure about this story, especially because almost every wrapper I got had the aforementioned Indian on it. Of course they could have printed more after they stopped the promotion. Or it could of just been an urban legend. I suppose I could Google it but I kind of like not knowing something in this time of immediate reference gratification. In some ways it’s great but then I also tend to spend large amounts of time looking up random useless crap just because I can.

Ok I’m done with the tangents now. On to the point of this post.

My time in Seattle started on October 2nd. I wanted to leave Atlanta for multiple reasons. I was tired of all the traffic, republicans, the rat race mentality, overbearing summers, friends moving away, the city council and mayor killing bars and restaurants but most of all it was wanderlust. I moved around a lot growing up and I won’t lie to you, it sucked. Always being the new kid (on the block) and having to fight to establish myself. Having to make new friends and acclimate to a new school. A byproduct of all this moving around is my boredom of a location after awhile.

Cue melting screen while gentle harp music plays……

I originally moved to Atlanta in late ‘96. Eddie a really good friend of mine had moved there from my previous city of Charlotte. I had visited him during the Olympics and was wowed by the plethora of nightlife and women. I was also told the ratio of women to men was 4:1, add to that the large gay population it made it even better. Of course that was probably bullshit but it convinced my horny nineteen year old mind. The kicker however was the job market. This was during the Tech Boom and Atlanta was hot (insert chessey Hotlanta joke here). Atlanta’s high tech want ads were as large as a small phonebook. Conversely Charlotte’s were composed of a just a couple of pages. Off I went to the phoenix and received two jobs offers my first couple of days there. I accepted the second one because Eddie worked there. Things were great for awhile, lots of parties and work was fun (gasp). But alas all good things….. Some of my good friends moved away, I fell (actually jumped headlong) into drug abuse and ended up quitting my job. I’ll save the specifics for another blog but eventually I was getting close to scraping the metaphorical bottom. Somehow I managed to crawl out of the pit of my own creation and started to put my life back on track. Once again I was a respectable member of society and hated every minute of it. With fewer good friends, disillusionment with life, my fellow man and even computers I knew it was time for a change. Previously I passed up on a possible move to San Diego and negotiations fell apart on a transfer to Ft. Lauderdale with another company. I probably could have went to Tampa as well. Finally I was at the point where I was tired of stagnating in my personal and professional life. After visiting Boston and Chicago as possible candidates, Seattle was decided upon. I was with my ex at the time (yes I’m single now, control yourself ladies) and she vetoed Austin which was also in the running for me. Looking at things now I might have been better off in Austin but I’m willing to give Seattle a chance. So Seattle it is and has been for the past couple of months.

End under-dramatic flashback sequence…..

This post has already run on much longer than I intended so Seattle details will have to wait. In the meantime you can read some of my Yelp reviews. Incidentally *self plug alert* I am now a member of the Elite squad. If you read this on Atlanta Bloggers I will be removed soon. Have no fear though, you can still read me via my Feedburner feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AlexVernon or on AlexVernon.com of course.

Ok kiddies that’s it for this post, be cool and stop stealing your grandmother’s pills.

Someone who’s supposed to do a shoot on Saturday, leaves their camera at work on Friday and can’t get it on Saturday because he’s iced in. Plus I was unable to take pictures of our ice storm (northerners don’t laugh). Luckily Larry Johnson who lives in my neighborhood took some pics, check them out here: East Atlanta Under Ice

You know those bumper stickers that say “Stupid should hurt”, sometimes I wish that were true.

-Alex

Last night I saw Michael Glabicki from Rusted Root at Andrews Upstairs. Michael put on an excellent show. It was just him and one out of the five guitars on stage. He had an extremely full sound, I’m glad a braved the crappy weather to go see him. The only downside was the audience, 80-90% of them we’re talking throughout the whole show. Rude motherfuckers, if you want to do that go to the bar across the street. I talked to Michael after the show to let him know not all venues in Atlanta are like that. There are some places that people go to listen to music like Eddie’s Attic and The EARL to name a couple. That was the first time I’ve been to Andrews Upstairs and the sound was good but the crowd and the staff sucked. There was also a small film crew following a couple around. It looked like one of those date shows, thankfully they left after awhile. Anyway if you have a chance check Michael out, good stuff.

-Alex

Yesterday I was trying to call a friend of mine to wish her happy birthday. I knew her cell phone was shutoff awhile back but I figured I would try anyway. Turns out the number belongs to someone else now, so I hung up during the voicemail message.

Later on that night I received a call from that number. I answer: “Hello?”
Caller: “Someone called me from this number a little while ago.”
Av: “Yeah, that was a few hours ago. Someone I know used to have that phone number.”
Caller: Starts saying something.
Av: I Interrupt her and say “Thank you” then hangup.

Maybe I was a little rude but that is one of my pet peeves. If I wanted to talk to this person I would have left a fucking message! Obviously she didn’t know who I was, so why bother calling back? If I see an unknown number in my call history and there is no message I don’t worry about it. I figure it’s a wrong number and don’t feel the need to call it and grill the person on the other side.

How dare you call my phone! This number is for people I give it out to only. Unless you are telling me I won the lottery you are wasting my time. I’m also using my minutes up by placing this call, so expect a bill from me!

This has happened to me a few times before (callbacks, not getting chewed out). Maybe it’s just people’s curiosity I guess. Next time it happens to me I’m going to ask the person why they’re calling. Maybe that will shed some light on the subject.

This post really fizzled out towards the end…

-Alex 678.555.1234

Took me two hours to get home last night because of hurricane Ivan. The downtown connector was packed so I got off on North Ave, which turned out to be a mistake. Part of it was flooded and there was a car stuck in it with water up to its windows. Of course I didn’t have my camera. I almost went back to get a shot but after two hours in traffic and rain I was done for the night. I didn’t lose power but my Internet connection went down. So I watched Black Hawk Down, it was a pretty good movie. Although some of the accents were really bad. If you ever get a chance check out Ambush in Mogadishu by Frontline. It’s an excellent program.

Website Gallery update:
Apparently I’m not the only one having problems with Gallery and Go Daddy, hopefully the issue will be resolved soon

-Alex

Have you ever noticed that ATM screens never seem to lineup with the buttons you push on the side. I suppose it has something to do with the low resolution of the screens and they way they’re mounted in the machines. You would think they would make it lineup since they’re raping you on surcharges. I know some banks are putting in nice color screens now (so they can show you ads) hopefully this will solve the problem. On an interesting side note, I have a friend that works with ATMs and he was telling me that they are going to start using Windows as the ATM OS (currently most of them are using OS/2). So much for security, huh?

-Alex

The Presto ATMs at Publix stores now charge a fee! I guess all good things come to an end…

-Alex

I was driving home the other day and I saw a H2 with one of Georgia’s wildlife license plates on it. The hypocrisy of this astounds me, it’s just like ordering a Big Mac value meal with a Diet Coke. I guess they think that the extra $20 for the plate makes up for the gas guzzling of their vehicle or maybe they did it just to piss people like me off. They also jumped into the HOV lane, now they did have at least a couple of people in the car but shouldn’t H2’s be restricted from it? I mean even though they are technically carpooling it pump out enough pollution for two or three cars anyway. Well at least they didn’t cross the double-white lines to get into it (one of my pet peeves).

Till next time,

-Alex

Honey