Friday, August 02, 2002

So we're at Blockbuster, picking up a couple of movies for the weekend. There is a man renting a video in the line next to us. Our cashier is trying to figure out the confusing combination of coupons that I'd brought, so I'm able to listen to the cashier next to us explain that there is a balance of $4.25 on the man's account. The man begins to explain, repeatedly, that he dropped the video off right at noon. He went to the pizza place for lunch next door. He made a special trip. He dropped it off. At noon. How can you possibly charge me? Can we work out a deal? I don't have enough money. Can we let it slide? I dropped it off. Why can't you help me out, here? I made a special trip. It was excrutiating. Apparently he only had enough cash on him to rent the one movie he came in for. The manager tried suggesting that when there are actually people in the store, and you're having lunch next door anyway, it might be a good idea to go into the store to ensure there's no "extended viewing charge." Let's see what time you guys processed it. I dropped it off at noon. I made a special trip... what? Seven o'clock at night? Why... why... And then he stormed off. Unbelievable. He probably used to work out schemes to get free pizzas just by complaining loud enough and long enough that the driver took longer than thirty minutes. I was glad to see that the young cashier didn't give into this guy. Correction: the cashier did cave, when he almost immediately offered to cut the late fee in half. What I'm glad about is that the guy didn't get what he wanted -- that he didn't have even two more dollars in his wallet to pay the late fee -- and had to walk away empty handed. 7:16:17 PM

Went ahead and took the bait on daypop, and tried the five minute IQ test. I was surprised. It's basically a vocabulary test. Big whoop. I'm not gonna say what I got, but it was above the threshold (126) for qualification in this cool club of cognizant citizens. Did I pay the sixty dollar entrance fee? Hmm. This must be part of the test. A paradox: to be included in the special society, you need to be above the line; but if you're above the line, you probably won't waste your money. 11:03:40 AM

If you haven't listened to Aimee Mann since her days with 'Til Tuesday (hush hush, voices carry), you've been missing out. After watching Magnolia last year, I immediately picked up the soundtrack. From Momentum, one of my favorite songs on the CD: Oh, for the sake of momentum Even though I agree with that stuff about seizing the day But I hate to think of effort expended All those minutes and days and hours I have frittered away. And she gets it: her new album, Lost in Space won't be released until the end of August, but until then, she's streaming the entire thing, free of charge, on her website (Flash required). 9:31:30 AM

Turns out all that effort expended last night wasn't for naught. This morning the tub had cleared, and the drain is running nice and fast. Guess it just took a bit longer to work through whatever was causing the backup. Hip hip hooray. After seeing the tub last night, and taking a peek this morning, Esmé declared "Dad, you're such a good fixer." Nice. 9:17:30 AM