What’s All This Then!

There’s nothing like a little mustard on a sausage biscuit or even just mustard on a biscuit (and Karl says, “Mmm Hmmm“). But yesterday, I found that I couldn’t get a single speck of mustard from mustard packs that had seemingly coagulated in our company’s breakroom. I found the ketchup packets much easier to use as I squeezed out this purplish red and black goo onto my breakfast sandwich. This may be part of our company’s new wellness program because the sight and smell of my biscuit suddenly made me no longer hungry. After I regretfully tossed my breakfast sandwich into the trashcan, I submitted the following suggestion to the powers that be:

If it’s not too much trouble, can something be done about the aged condiments in our breakroom? The mustard packets have started returning to seed form, the mayonnaise is old enough for admission to the mayo clinic, and the ketchup can’t catch up to your food no matter how hard you squeeze the packages. Even the salt is older than Lot’s wife! I don’t think their shelf life is supposed to be longer than the life of a shelf.

I know there are all kinds of ways to reduce the cost of a labor force, but poisoning them should not be an acceptable method.

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Some people complain that movies should be more like real life. Often I wish real life was more like the movies. Although, back in the day, movies were of tamer stuff. You could watch a guy kiss his horse but not his girl. How bad a movie was, was in proportion to the number of chase scenes and explosions. (A wide screen would make a bad film twice as bad. Actually, that last statement still holds true today.) Today’s movies do a great job in stretching the boundaries of reality and imagination. So I do enjoy watching a good film as I get the chance. But with hundreds of new films coming out each year, who has the 8, 9, even $11 to risk seeing each one?

I don’t know about you, but I’m working on a very restricted budget. Yet I try to include a little bit of entertainment money so that my life isn’t all about working myself to death. In fact, playing myself to death is a much better alternative. And if most fun didn’t demand money up front, you’d find me laugh myself to the graveyard. So for now I’m doing the next best thing. While I can’t justify the expense of cable or satellite TV, I have been using Blockbuster online rentals as a very cheap form of entertainment … well, it was cheap in the beginning.

It started out at 15 bucks a month and I could have three movies out at a time. Even when Blockbuster raised the monthly fee to $18, it was still a good deal — much better than $40 for satellite or $60 for cable. It got even better when Blockbuster let me use my online movies for free rentals at their brick-and-mortar stores. Even though I sometimes can only watch 20 or 30 minutes of the movie a day, I was in entertainment heaven. Was it a bargain? Last month, I spent less than a dollar a DVD.

But I guess all good things must come to an end. Or at least, become more expensive. Blockbuster sent me an e-mail today letting me know that I can have the same service I have now for $25 a month. That’s a shame because I’ve been getting letters from satellite companies offering their services for $30 a month. But Blockbuster isn’t so greedy as to not give me some options. In fact, they’re offering 11 plans. If I want to be extremely cheap, I can rent up to two DVDs a month for five dollars. Of course, if I want to be extremely cheap, I’d shut off my electricity. My entertainment center would be a birdbath and some rocks. If I want to splurge, I could always upgrade to a pellet gun.

Oh well. Someday it will be great to be able to play for living instead of work for one. Until then, I guess I’ll have to continue supporting my habit of escaping into movies. Yes, I know it’s good to be without vices. But is it good to be without temptations?

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