Customer Service - Two words only found in the Dictionary

I don't know about you, but I hate fixing stuff at my house. I don't mind the work, have plenty of tools, and actually know how to use most of them. The part I hate is buying ANYTHING from Home Depot or Lowe's. Every time I go to these places, I know I'll be back at least three times to return stuff that doesn't work right or was incorrectly suggested by an employee of said business. Here's the dialog from my last trip:
Me: I need grounding wire.
Lowe's guy: What size wire?
Me: I'm grounding an outlet, I guess whatever size that is (should be #14 on a 20 amp circuit).
Lowe's guy: No, it has to be 4, 6 , or 8.
Me: Ok.
Lowe's guy: or you could use this. (points to #14 wire pre-cut in 8 inch strips).
Me: You said it had to be 4, 6, or 8.
Lowe's guy: (dumb / annoyed look as if I'm being difficult)
Me: I also need self-tapping grounding screws.
Lowe's guy: There's no such thing.

Fine. I leave knowing I can't possibly match wits with this guy. I head for Home Depot.

Me: I need grounding wire
Depot guy: What size?
Me: I'm grounding an outlet
Depot guy: There's 4, 6, 8?
Me: Uh, ok, number 6?
Depot guy: What??? (looks at me like I'm retarded even though he JUST TOLD me there's 4, 6, and 8) . You need number 14.
Me: I know. You're the one who told me I need 4, 6, or 8.
Me: I also need self-tapping grounding screws.
Depot guy: No, you don't. The box has threaded holes.
Me: I have old boxes.
Depot guy: There's only one kind of grounding screw.
Me: You should go have sex with the Lowe's guy so whatever knuckleheaded species you're a member of doesn't die out. (ok, I just thought that, I didn't say it)

So I went to a real hardware store where a real person said "Self-tapping? Sure. Oh, I don't have any right now but try these grounding clips. They'll work, too." Let that be a lesson to everyone - good customer service costs 1.29.

Hollywood Sucks Part II

I posted the other day that Hollywood is all remakes now. Tell me if you see a trend here: Charlie's Angels, Planet of the Apes, Shaft, Starsky and Hutch, Oceans 11, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Rollerball, The Dukes of Hazzard, Kojak, King Kong, War of the Worlds, Willie Wonka (a.k.a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), The Pink Panther, The fog, Bewitched, The Longest Yard, The Bad New Bears, and The Stepford Wives. Boy, there's nothing I like better than taking the wife to the movies, spending 15 bucks for 2 tickets, 8 bucks for popcorn, 4.25 for a hotdog that's some bizarre shade of grey and settling in to 90 minutes of crap I already watched years ago. Can somebody please tell me when the big one's going to hit California and wash Hollywood in to the ocean where it belongs?

Nobody reads Blogs

So I'm bouncing around the web a few months ago and I decide to find out more about blog sites. "Hey, these sites have impact, man, they can change the world." Before the whole Bush national guard thing, I didn't even know what a blog was. In a nutshell, it's a GUI newsgroup with instant posting. I've browsed quite a few and found most of them to be laced with political hatred and conspiracy theories. There are two common themes, too, whether conservative or liberal. 1. The main stream media is ignoring them and 2. "our" stereo-types are better than "their" stereo-types. That's it. I'm going to start a blog site that rips apart other blog sites. Not only that, but I'll use gross generalizations to justify my point. All black people are oppressed. Fat people can't help being fat. We should throw all the guns in the ocean. The middle class is getting the shaft. I'm a victim.

Now that's a proper blog.

Airport Security?

I'm trying to figure out how airport security works and here's my theory: People are scared to fly because they think terrorists are going to hijack the plane. The airlines step up security to "make things safer," but are so afraid of being sued or are trying to be politically correct that they wrecklessly endanger millions of people because they have to pretend we're all equally likely to be terrorists. Hmmm, let's see, the airlines can't possibly check every single person and bag (thoroughly) before each flight, so they "randomly" check certain passengers. Since they can only check a percentage of passengers, you'd think they'd maximize their opportunity and check the most-likely candidates for terror, not unlike smokers paying more for life insurance - statistically more likely to have heart disease, high blood pressure, etc = more risk. Yet the airlines don't do this. Young, single, Muslims of middle-eastern origin are about 1000 times more likely to be terrorists than 80-year-old men, middle-aged women, children, and me - born in Pennsylvania, married, pushing 40 and as white as can be, yet I get searched EVERY SINGLE TIME I fly because I have a "common" name. Last time I checked, there weren't any Al Qaeda bad guys named Smith.

So who hates Hollywood besides me?

I was talking to my friend the other day and he asked me if I'd seen The Dukes of Hazzard yet. Nope, Jessica looks hot in the video but I'm not paying to see that. Apparently, there are no new ideas in Hollywood because it's all remakes now. War of the worlds, King Kong (twice for God's sake), the Dukes (even TV shows aren't safe). Why can't Hollywood come up with anthing new? I figure it's because they're so busy analyzing trends, being politically correct, or just plain greedy, they don't allow writers to write anymore.