Month: October 2008

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Company Policy #3

More from my first job at a CD Warehouse:

In the store we had what we called the “Crap Bin”. It was our 99¢ bin. It was full of CD’s that were from really bad artists, CD’s that we had too many of, or ones that were just in bad condition. There was a lot of Hootie and the Blowfish, Snow, Green Day, Soul Asylum and other stuff like that. The crap bin just filled up, always waiting for that moment of exhilarating joy when someone would want to hear Colour Me Badd again.

Now as the crap bin continually accumulated more CD’s we needed to find a way to reduce the size of the crap bin. We thought of implementing a buy one get one 99 cent CD free promotion, and we tried improving the appearance of the bin and more prominently displaying them but nothing worked. The CD’s in that bin kept growing. One day John was inspired as he remembered the store across town that also buys CD’s. It was a store called Hastings and they had a relatively small collection of used CD’s. They didn’t generally offer as much money as we did for used CD’s. They were known for giving 3 dollars for the good stuff and we usually gave 5 bucks a pop for good material. John and my friend, Rob, who worked there too, loaded up about 30 CD’s and headed over to Hastings. Rob went up to the counter and John went inconspicuously over to the magazines and hid himself, as the Hastings management knew who he was. Rob went over to the counter and offered his stack of crappy CD’s to the girl at the counter. The girl instantly turned around and asked the manager for help. The manager began grilling Rob about the origin of so many CD’s that were from such a wide range of genres. Rob explained that he was very eclectic in his musical taste and that some of the CD’s were his sisters. After filling out an information form Rob looked around for John and saw him hiding his face behind a magazine. The girl told Rob that she could only give him 30 dollars for the entire stack of CD’s. They left with the satisfaction of getting 1 dollar for each of those CD’s from the 99 cent bin. Upon their return they relayed the whole story to me and we all laughed our heads off. I said that I wished I could have been there, John said, “Oh, you’ll get your turn.”

One week later we picked out another stack of about 30 CD’s and carefully positioned them in the stack so as to have the recognizable artists in strategic places. I walked into Hastings with my stack of CD’s and John came in a minute after me. I went to the counter to find one girl behind it and I looked around for a manager only to not find one in sight. I began commenting to the girl on how cool her job was and trying to make small talk. I had to fill out an information slip to make sure they could find me if it turned out that the CD’s were stolen. After I did that the girl handed me 60 bucks. I almost started laughing out loud. I kept my composure until I got outside and met John at his car. After that we just referred to our trips as “The Hastings Scandal”.

Isn’t it a real shame that no one will probably ever know the excitement of selling CD’s to a competitor?

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SNL Funny????

I haven’t thought anything on Saturday Night Live was funny for a long time. I would tune in sometimes to see if I would laugh and never so much as crack a smile. Randomly there would be something pretty good, maybe. I watched on Saturday and saw a couple of things that I thought were pretty good.

I guess there is some weird editing stuff with this first one.

This one is just a good solid impression.

I have always wanted to be a writer for SNL (even when they are unfunny) so if anyone knows anybody, go ahead and hook me up.

Maybe I can dig up some classics at a later date.

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Things to Say

There are some words and phrases that I want to say more, so I will put the list out there. Some of these are old quotes and phrases and some are newly made up.

Main Street

When someone is a solid citizen and takes care of their business. Ex. “That was pretty main street of you.” I am mostly mocking how much I have heard and been annoyed by the phrase in the last couple of weeks.

“I am terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.”

This is a classic quote from Ghostbusters that I need to say more.

“I celebrate his entire catalog.”

Another great quote from Office Space which was referring to Michael Bolton. If someone asks you what you think of someone you can say that you celebrate their entire catalog.

Wall Street

Acting selfishly without regard for anyone else. Ex. “That Michael Jordan is so wall street.”

Foolish

In the spirit of calling good bad and bad good here is another one to confuse past generations and make you feel more clever. When someone does a very good job. Ex. “Those are some foolish moves man.”

Congressional

Deceptive and confusing for the purpose of personal gain.

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Top 5 Burgers

As someone who had burgers and Taco Bell embedded into their DNA as a child and who is a big fan of Hamburger Heart Bear, I can appreciate a solid performance from a burger. These are my top 5 burger joints in order.

5. Burger Master – (Tonopah Nevada)

If it was anyplace else it would be a standard struggling Mom and Pop establishment. But being in Tonopah made it the true burger master. Unfortunately they don’t do too much business because Tonopah is a small town and there is a McDonalds up the street. The McDonalds was disgusting and since there were only about 4 other places to eat in town Burger Master had the best burgers. My favorite thing was the Patty Melt. I often wonder if I hadn’t lived there but had only passed through and eaten there if it would have been as good. On taste alone In-N-Out might deserve my 5th spot but the Burger Master was there when I needed him.

4.Whataburger

If you have ever been to Texas or seen an episode of King of the Hill then you have been introduced to Whataburger even if only subliminally. I can’t really pinpoint exactly what it is that I like about Whataburger. They do have quality food, but most of my reason for putting them on the list has something to do with the enormous number of times that I have eaten there. Even if only for nostalgic purposes Whataburger makes number 4 on the list.

3. Red Robin

This is the only big-name, nationwide chain on my list. I really enjoy that they give you all you can eat fries and they do have more types of burgers than I ever thought someone could dream up.

2. BJ’s Drive-In – (Odessa Texas)

This is a little place with HUGE burgers. The Jr burger is still big. When I was a kid we would go there and one burger would feed 4 kids and feed us well. One would think that you might lose something in the taste department when focusing on making burgers bigger than your head, but they manage to be a quality and quantity kind of place.

1. Five Guys

I went to one of the original Five Guys in the Washington DC area and by the second bite I had placed their burgers at the top of my list. The burger was perfectly cooked and very well put together. It was like it had been made with love and cuddled before it was brought out. Even the cow must have led a good life. The cheese melts perfectly on the meat and the vegetables are actually still nice and cool because they haven’t been under a heat lamp. Find a Five Guys near you and go.