Where have all the cashiers gone?

I just made a trip to the Home Depot. First, before entering the store, I was my normal otherwise happy self, well my normal grumpy self, as my wife likes to call it. Not too grumpy, just the normal day to day annoyances thus far. Let me tell you what, ever since Home Depot got those newfangled self checkout thingamajigs, it's damn near impossible to use a real person. Most of the time the only human running a register is the lady trying to manage those 4 machines which inevitably have a problem. Beep please place item in the bagging area, damnit! I did place the item in the bag. Beep please place item in the bagging area..take it out, put it back in the bag, Beep unexpected item in the bagging area...the lady gets the machine to acknowledge that yes the item was placed in the bag and no there wasn't anything else in the bag. That machine was starting get pushy with old Grumpy I tell you what. Next up, Beep please place item in the bagging area! Goldarnit! It's a shovel, how am I supposed to put this item in the bagging area??!!!??!?! It doesn't quite fit in the unusually-sized item area. Now the lady is busy cajoling another one of the registers-run-amok into realizing that the customers are doing what they're supposed to be doing. Now, I'm no Luddite, but they shouldn't be using these things to put people out of work, just make them an option for someone who's just buying a few items, to speed up the whole system. I for one have made every effort to use a human when I can. A polite smile from a cashier does a lot more to warm old Grumpy's heart than that infernal machine yelling at me Beep please place item in the bagging area!!

Kids these days, it ain't the kids it's the parents or lack of.

There's a little twit that rides a dirtbike around my neighborhood creating all sorts of noise and commotion. Now, I see at least two things wrong with this situation. First he's never wearing a helmet and I'd guess he's about 14. Now if memory serves thats too damn young to be riding this contraption on the streets and even if that was legal, he oughta be wearing headgear. Now I call the little nitwit a nitwit, but in all fairness it's not his fault he was born to Cretins that think it's ok to have their teenager riding a DIRTbike around city streets with no helmet. I recall hearing about a little thing called Darwin awards, maybe they'll be winning one one day. I feel sorry for the kid. The dirtbike thing is the other part of this that gets me. Now, I've been around a long time, but I can't remember too many dirt roads in this part of Tampa anytime recently. Why would you think it's ok to get one of these things to ride in the city? These are the kind of folks that give rednecks a bad name. I bet they bought the big box of fireworks at Walmart too. Grumpmeter is level 5.

Greener pastures or so they think

I read recently that the Seminole Heights blogman is moving on to greener pastures. There goes the neighborhood. He says that he wants the blog to remain with "local" observations but he's retaining creative control as editor. I for one think that's pretty presumptuous for someone who's heart is no longer in the game to be the fella making the final decisions from the outside looking in on what's appropriate and what isn't. The other thing is running a blog is hard enough when the material is close to your heart, so I wonder if he'll still find the time. I wish him and his wife all the best, but I feel that the blog has jumped the shark when the blogman leaves. I wonder how many of his readers will feel betrayed or consider him to be a sell out. Moving to the suburbs, tripling his commute, burning that much more gas, sitting in that much more traffic, spending that much more time each day away from friends and family, spitting out that much more pollution, and paying that much more in taxes. But we all gotta do what we all gotta do. Farewell blogman, best of luck to you. I hope they won't be putting old grumpy out to pasture anytime soon.

9-12: The day we moved forward.

Let me start by saying I mourn the loss of those folks in the Towers, the Pentagon, and on United 93. I mourn the symbolic end of our innocence. A day of remembrance is certainly in order, but what about those folks before and since? How about those of us who carry on? Let's make every day a dedication of life and loss, or if we need a single day on which to focus, what better than 9/12 the day after, the day we went forward, the day where we were a single America, with a common goal, a common spirit. Thats what I say.

Are portable EMP generators coming anytime soon?

I really wish I had something that would nuke the stereo's of those obnoxious little punks who insist on sharing their crap with those of us who enjoy actual music. The little twits with their boom boom boom mobiles driving around thinking they are cool. Why can't the cops do something about this? The noise ordinances need to be revised to explicitly prohibit this sort of disturbance. There's one little idiot that lives near me that has spent several days adjusting his new system much to the chagrin of the neighbors. Why has parental supervision declined so much that there is no respect for people's right to enjoy their peace and quiet? It really isn't the little twit's fault he was probably never taught to think of others or the impact his offensive behavior has on anyone else around him. The only purpose of these subwoofer systems is to spread their crap to people who don't want to hear it. They wear their disturbance like a badge of honor. Someone else in the neighborhood has one of those train horns. We were walking the other evening and this jackass thinks it's funny to honk the horn at us as he or she goes by. Of course our backs were toward the a-hole at the time. Gee Cletus watch this, let's scare us some old folks. Completely uncalled for. How is it even legal to sell these devices?

Katherine Harris? Katherine Harris?

I don't even know what to say. Is this the best the GOP can do?

Hookers in the Hood, Lets talk about sex.

Now, I might have mentioned before that I lived in Seminole Heights, a neighborhood a little north of downtown Tampa. Anyone who has lived around here for any length of time knows the long-held reputation of my beloved "hood." Nebraska Avenue is world famous as being the place to go in Tampa for a $5 hummer or something similar, people all over the country seem to know Tampa as Mons Venus and Nebraska Avenue.
Let me start by saying that what folks choose to do behind closed doors is their own business. I for one can't see why someone would pay for "it", (hell I've been married so long I sometimes feel like paying to not do "it") but if they want to do that well then, what's that to me. BUT! That being said, I don't need to see no scraggly looking strung out poor shell of a soul plying their wares on the street corners a couple of blocks from my house. These are people with real problems and they bring in other less desirables..the johns, the perverts, the drug dealers, the pimps, whatever petty criminal you choose to name.
There was a push a few years back where the neighbors started an exercise group and other ways to get people out and about taking photos and writing down license plates and that sort of stuff. I guess from what the papers said and looking at the crime tracker it seems to have worked for a time.
Well guess what they're back. I went to 3 Coins on Sunday morning and lo and behold there was a whore on Nebraska working it at 8:30 in the morning. I've seen a couple more over the past month or so, but this one left no doubt as to what she was offering. Dear lord, who's out shopping for nookie that time of day? I just don't get it. Reminds me of the 24 hour adult bookstores. I never thought that at say, 3:30am someone must think to themselves I just gotta have me a triple ripple plug and some fuzzy luv cuffs, but I guess they do. As I was saying, they were all but gone until recently, I think I might just have to get myself a camera and go out some night and start snapping photos of license plates. Or better yet, a bullhorn.

How do you say Rude en espanol?

I was having a nice conversation the other day with a stranger whose primary language was not English, but he spoke English quite well. His wife came along and she too spoke English quite understandably. The thing that got me was they started conversing with each other in Spanish in the middle of our conversation. I don't know about where some folks come from, but that's one of the rudest things I've yet to experience. They didn't think anything of it. And people say we shouldn't have an official language. Well a common language is one of the most unifying features of a society, and as long as people behave like these folks did there will always be ill will and and prejudice.