My car was broken into this morning. I lived for 2 years and 4 months in California, living near the same area where Snoop Dog grew up and learned to be a pimp, not once did I experience an automotive break-in. After just 4 months back in Ohio, I've had my car stereo stolen from my Ford Focus. Here's the story. I had the day off of work because I recently purchased a new sofa and I needed to be home for the delivery. In the morning around 8:45 I walked past my car on the way to the apartment community's fitness room to run on the treadmill. At that time, my car was undamaged. Around 9:45 AM I walked back to my apartment. I noticed the car next to mine was missing it's passenger side front window. The first thought to cross my mind was, "that would suck." It occurred to me that I should probably check out my own car. I had already passed by my car, so I swung around and sure enough, the driver's side front window was busted out and my car stereo was missing. The thief had rummaged through my little storage area between the seats and found my GPS and my Sirius radio, but he left those behind. He did take my Bluetooth headset. So all in all, I'm out one car window, one car stereo and a Bluetooth headset. Interestingly enough, if I had been at work this morning, none of this would have happened.

So I called the insurance company and received the news that I expected to receive. Yes, the window would be covered, but the cost is less than my deductible, so insurance is not going to be used. The window will only cost around $167.50 to be fixed and the repair guy will be here this afternoon between 1 and 4. That's the same time window for my couch delivery, conveniently enough. I called the the apartment leasing office and reported the incident and then called the non-emergency police line to report the incident. The recording on the police line indicated that I could file the report online at www.columbuspolice.org, so I hung up and got right online.

I must admit, I enjoyed filing the report online. Perhaps I should thank my car radio thief for allowing me the opportunity to discover this little gem of comedy at the Columbus police website. After completing some standard contact info for the report, it brought me to the section where I get to describe what property was taken. Rather than letting you type in the category of item that was taken, you have to select from an extensive list in a drop down menu. I'd like to think that they developed this list of items based on past reports. Maybe so, but the fact that the list was not in alphabetical order got me thinking. The list seemed to be in order of category. For instance, items relating to theft from a car were grouped together. Items relating to theft from a farm were grouped together. Items relating to theft from a home construction site were grouped together. You get the picture. It seemed as if the list was more of a brainstorming session than an alphabetical search of past police reports. You could almost see the stream of thought that led from one group of items to the next. Aside from making it difficult to find the item that I needed to select, it also provided a few interesting items that left me wondering what these people were actually thinking about during their brainstorming session. Some items were quite normal. If some identification had been stolen, I could easily find the section of the list that included "passport" and "social security card." If I were a farmer I could scroll down the area that included "horse(s)", "cattle" and even "llama." There were other sections that boggled the mind. For instance, what were the folks in this brainstorming session thinking when they included such items as "condom" and "body"? If somebody had stolen a condom, wouldn't the victim just go get another one? I don't know that I would report that. As for "body"....I mean...really? I suppose body theft can and does happen, but I'm also thinking that theft of a body is a serious enough crime to warrant actually CALLING the police and getting an officer to show up at your door not just casually filing an online police report. 

Anyway, thank you Mr. Punk-Ass car window breaking, car stereo stealing jerk. Thank you for allowing me to discover the wonderful world of online police report filing.

Allow me to explain, for those who just don’t get it. The first year would have been year 1, right? Can we agree to that? Maybe not, but if we assume we are talking about the first year A.D., that would be year 1 according to our historical (and religious) calendars. True, the people who lived in year 1 didn't actually call it year 1, but who cares about them. Somebody, in their infinite wisdom, assigned that year a number and the number that was assigned was not zero. Generally, when we assign numbers to things, we start with 1, not 0. If the first year of A.D. was 1, then year 10 was the last year of the first decade. 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10. Count those numbers and you will see there are ten of them. Ten years equal a decade. The second decade began with the year 11, not the year 10. Now add two thousand years to that. 2009 is the ninth year of the current decade. 2010 is the tenth and last year of the decade, so the new decade will begin on January 1, 2011.

Now that we have that settled, go enjoy yourself and party like it’s 2010 (or 2009 I don’t really give a crap. I just needed something to blog about today.)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

So I'm on the hunt for an ugly holiday sweater and decided to check Schottenstein's Department Store. I won't be able to visit the store until Thursday, so I thought I'd look online. I was only mildly surprised to find that Schottenstein's does NOT have a website. I did, however, find this great review of Schottenstein's.

"In generally, I really like Schottenstein's because they have really good prices on clothes and shoes. Some locations can be kind of shotty, but if you go to them in better neighborhoods you are sure to find a family fav."

The user gave Schottenstein's 5 stars out of 5.

Let's break down this user's review, one little bit at a time.  "In generally..."  This review has already lost all credibility, but let's continue anyway. "...they have really good prices on clothes and shoes." That's because the quality of Schottenstein's clothes and shoes rank somewhere between "too trashy to donate to charity" and "sell it in a yard sale for a quarter." "Some locations can be kind of shotty..." Hmm, "shotty"?  "Some"?????  "...if you go to them in better neighborhoods..." Oh yeah, I understand they will soon be opening a location in Upper Arlington, Ohio. Shortly thereafter, Upper Arlington will have hundreds of million dollar homes for sale. "...you are sure to find a family fav."  Oh sure, like that oversized shiny gold t-shirt, the size 54 waist pants that hang down below your butt or a wonderful sweater with lot's of sequence and randomly placed sewn on patches of menorahs. At least I surely hope I can find that sweater. That is why I need to visit Schottenstein's.

(1)  One person says to another, “Are you taking a plop?”

Try not to be disgusted. It’s not what you think. P-L-O-P stands for Partial Lump-sum Option Payment. It’s simply a term for taking a lump-sum advance of monthly retirement checks. I’m not sure if the inventers of this acronym were thinking ahead, but if I had been in on that meeting, I can tell you, I would have advised them of the humor of it.

(2)  Imagine engaging in conversation with a colleague and you hear the following statement. “I had 10 members today and boy is my throat sore.”

It does sound like that person should probably try to cut back on the number of members he (or she) takes in on a daily basis, but it really wouldn’t be necessary. In my line of work we don’t call our visitors “customers,” we call them “members.” So you see, having 10 members should be interpreted to mean that person interacted with 10 different people and therefore did a lot of talking, which undoubtedly led to the sore throat. That’s just not quite as fun as your dirty little thought is it? Fine, you can interpret it as you see fit.

Do you wear your cell phone, excuse me, your BlackBerry, on your belt? I understand that there are certain professions that require one to be available at all hours and so these individuals must have their phone readily available. For those people, I will consider giving a pass, although I still believe it would be possible for you to have the phone in your pocket and it would be just as readily available as it is on your belt. If your job does not require you to be readily available by cell phone, then why would you wear your phone on your belt while at work or any other time for that matter? If you are attempting to draw attention to the fact that you have a spare tire that extends past your phone, mission accomplished. I will also give a pass, reluctantly, to those who have such an old BlackBerry or other phone that is absolutely enormous and if placed in the pocket would create an extraordinarily large bulge, which would undoubtedly be cause for its own paragraph in this post.

Men, are you wearing an extremely narrow tie?  Do you have a gig with your jazz band later tonight? If so, I’ll give you a pass (maybe.)

(I’m going to steal this next one from a friend’s pet peeves.*) Are you wearing a North Face jacket? If so, you’re doing a good job of blending in with 90% of the population of the State of Ohio. Seriously, next time you’re out, take a look around. Try to count all the North Face jackets you see. If it were a drinking game you’d be passed out in 15 minutes.

Are you wearing gigantic noise cancelling headphones outside of an airplane? Oh wait, those are football players. As long as they keep beating Michigan, they get a pass.

Are you driving a Maserati to your job where 98% of the other employees will never be able to afford such an automobile? Good for you! Way to stand out! I think that BlackBerry on your belt is ringing.

There you have it. I don’t want to overwhelm you with too many observances in one day. Just keep in mind, people are watching you.

* RJ, sorry for stealing.

The first is bowling. Believe it or not, but I live in the Midwest and I lack any and all skill when it comes to the “sport” of bowling. It’s not that I haven’t tried and it’s not that I don’t enjoy myself at the bowling alley with friends. That is, until my friends decide they are going to teach me how to bowl. I’ve tried all techniques and I’ve had many teachers, but I am still a terrible bowler. There’s something about my bowling ability that makes all others around me feel like a professional bowler. With this feeling of bowling superiority, people often feel the need to pass on their extensive knowledge of throwing a large, heavy ball down a wooden alley to knock over 10 pins. Despite the efforts of many, I remain one of the world’s worst bowlers. Does this upset me? No, it does not. I long ago came to peace with my lack of bowling ability.

Skating is another enigma of mine. Whether it be roller skates/blades or ice skates, I simply cannot do it. I know all of the techniques involved in skating. I’ve heard it all a thousand times from a thousand teachers. Once again, I am not completely against skating and like bowling, I enjoy hanging out with friends for any occasion. It’s just that I can’t skate, so there’s no use in trying to teach me. I never hold it against my friends for trying to teach me. I always warn them ahead of time that I am un-teachable, but most of them just take that as a challenge and try to teach me anyway. They always leave the skating rink feeling a slight sense of failure because they were unable to turn me into Brian Boitano in an hour. For that I can only offer up the same old story. “Don’t worry, many have tried to teach me and many have failed. It’s not your fault that I have weak ankles.” I usually do make at least one enemy while skating and that is the one person the rink has assigned to go around and make sure the weak skaters are skating in the middle of the rink. I understand the logic, the middle of the rink is a shorter distance, so you can get around the rink faster. I always tell this person the same thing, I have no interest in getting around the rink quickly, just in getting around the rink in one piece. I need the wall, that’s just the way it is. These rink lifeguards are the ones who started skating before they could walk and simply can’t understand someone like myself. I’m sorry, there are only a few logical reasons why a person would want to be a good skater. I have no chance of being a figure skater, hockey player or being on a roller derby team nor do I wish to be a server at Sonic. Since those are the only logical reasons for a person to strap on blades or wheels, I see me living a happy life in regular shoes.

So what’s the moral of the story? (Hell if I know!) I guess it’s simply this. I can’t be taught how to bowl or how to skate. You can try to teach me if you wish, just don’t get angry at me when I don’t get any better. Remember, these are just pastimes for us normal folk who don’t showcase our talents on ESPN2 or the local Sonic Drive Thru delivering breakfast burritos and tater tots, so I’m fine with my lack of ability in these areas.

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As funny as that skit was, I am in desperate need of a change bank. We are approaching the day when cash, especially coins, will be a thing of the past, but we’re not quite there yet. More often than not, it’s the little annoying things that still require cold hard cash and the smaller the denomination, the harder it is to obtain. Laundry, Coke machines, the lady at work that collects dollars to participate in the bi-weekly office lottery ticket purchases, all these things require small denominations of cash, which are hard to come by.

The other day I had to change some dollars into quarters to do my laundry. The banks were closed, but as it so happened I was at the grocery store. I went to the customer service desk and politely asked, almost sheepishly asked, if I could please (pretty please) have quarters for these worthless dollar bills in my wallet. The tall, slender, goth teenager behind the counter started to reach for the cash register, paused, then looked me dead in the eye and lied, “I’m sorry, we’re actually out of quarters at the moment.” Fine whatever, I’ll take my business elsewhere, I thought. I left that grocery store and went to another to do my shopping and quarter begging. The next grocery store was so packed I couldn’t even find a parking spot, so I abandoned shopping all together and went to a local Laundromat, which I knew had change machines.

On a separate occasion, I also needed to obtain quarters for laundry, but the banks were open. Since I was at the bank already, I decided to withdraw $40 from my checking account. Before I even had a chance to explain to the cashier how I wanted my money, she proceeded to hand me two 20 dollar bills. I handed the 20’s back to her and explained that I would like two rolls of quarters and two 10 dollar bills. Looking extremely annoyed, the cashier handed me two 10 dollar bills, then headed over to a co-worker. My cashier whispered something in her co-worker’s ear to which the co-worker sighed and handed my cashier two rolls of quarters. Upon returning to my window, the cashier heavily dropped the two rolls in front of me.

Now I ask you, is the economy so bad that they are no longer making quarters? Are we now limited to the supply of quarters that are already in circulation? What the hell is going on with this quarter supply shortage and why hasn’t it made the New York Times or Wall Street Journal? If there really is a shortage in quarters, then I should hope that my apartment complex and the local Laundromats will quickly adapt and begin installing machines that accept refillable cash cards. Unless somebody plans to open up a change bank, like the one in the Saturday Night Live commercial parody, then something has to be done.

I also love it when people ask me why I would leave the weather in California. All I can say is, if weather was the most important thing in life, everybody would be living in Southern California. Speaking of weather, the sun is shining right now in central Ohio, the air is crisp, the leaves are changing and the Buckeyes are playing Wisconisn just a short distance away from my apartment at 3:30 today. When Kylie gets off work at Barnes later this afternoon, she's going to come over and watch the game with me. Would I rather be in L.A.? Quitely simply, no.

Speaking of California, I posted some new pictures in my gallery. The pictures are from my last full day in Long Beach. I had packed almost everything I owned and Pan, Autograph and Baby Emma came down to Long Beach to spend some time at the Aquarium of the Pacific. Speaking of the Family Pan, they too will be moving to Columbus by the end of this year. The move date, as far as I know, is not completely set at this time. Pan of course lived in Columbus and moved to L.A. shortly after I moved to California. While there, she met her husband Autograph and gave birth to Baby Emma. In California, Pan works for the same company that she worked for when she was in Columbus. This year, her company announced that they were closing that California office and moving those operations to the Columbus office. They made Pan an offer to take a job in Columbus and she accepted, so they will be moving back here later this year, perhaps mid-December. To check out the adventures of Pan, you can read her blog at Pandamonium!