Loss of Privacy

Recently, Domino’s pizza has been running ads selling their “Brooklyn-style” pizza.  This got me to wondering, “what the hell is a Brooklyn pizza and why have I never heard of it before?”  For Domino’s, this apparently means that your pizza will taste like cardboard, but it’s now foldable!  It will also, conveniently, have 6 slices instead of 8, making the folding easier, most likely have imitation cheese, and something that looks like pepperoni on it.

Let me let you in on a secret.  This is not Brooklyn or any other New York style pizza.  It’s just a stupid gimmick/stunt to try to sell more pizzas from a crap pizza chain.  Pizza Hut and Papa John’s also qualify as crap.  None of it tastes like proper pizza.

I’m not even going to get into the fact that, outside of New York, it’s near impossible to find someone whocan make proper pizza, yet alone will sell me just a slice.  Nor will I go on about how stupid people are when you are out of New York and call to have a pie delivered.  They always tell you, “sorry, we only sell pizza.”  Uh, duh!  It’s called a pizza PIE, you dolt!

I also consider it false advertising when places advertise “New York Style Pizza.”  The only thing New York about it is that it’s round!  Please, stop advertising this way.  You’re lying and you’re pizza usually tastes like crap and nothing like a pizza I eat in New York.

It’s like when I went to Nebraska for college.  Everyone there claimed that Valentino’s was the best Italian food on the planet.  Yeah, well, I guess it was the best…..for giving me exploding, burning diahrrea!  Their food isn’t even close to real Italian food.  I should know.  I grew up with real Italian immigrants in New York and have been to Italy three times.  So, please, stop telling me that places like Valentinos and The Olive Garden are real Italian food.

While we’re at it, I have found no one outside of New York who can make a proper calzone either.  You DO NOT put sauce in your calzone but you must ALWAYS use ricotta.

Your pizza should always be available by the slice.  You walk up, get a slice, and walk away with it in some wax paper.  Grab some extra napkins for the oil that’s going to drip all over your hands.  Eat it, drink your Coke, and go about your day.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go call Gino’s and have them deliver a pizza to me. Then, tomorrow, I’m going to walk over to Tony’s Pizza Pit and grab me a slice or two.

This year, the day after Halloween, I did my usual rounds of the retail stores to buy my Halloween candy at 75-90% off. It’s a great way to stock up on chocolate. This year, however, I’ve noticed, again, that All Saints Day has also been dubbed “get the Christmas crap set up” day by retailers. I used to enjoy Christmas but, with it coming earlier and earlier each year, I have come to despise the holiday, avoid it, and dream of the new year instead.

When I was younger, Christmas displays didn’t appear until after Thanksgiving. You would have the weekend off and Black Friday was a day of sales, none of which started at 5am, and a time to go and look at all the Christmas decorations being put up.

This year, my local Kmart didn’t even take the time to mark down the Halloween candy the day after the holiday. Two employees told me they would be doing that after they put the Christmas decorations up because they had to finish them by 11am. Their chocolate was shoved into a corner, partially covered up by boxes of Christmas items that were to be displayed on the shelves that were, just yesterday, covered in Halloween items.

Target had their candy marked down and their Christmas trees, candy, and other displays were already up by 10am. As I strolled down to Sears, who doesn’t have candy but had other things I needed to buy that day, were also scrambling to put their fake trees up and string their store with Christmas lights.

This morning, I read in the Daily News that the Monk Christmas special will be airing tonight at 10pm. We are a week away from Thanksgiving and we have the first Christmas special of the television season. I agree with the article that this is way too early for Christmas specials and that

Every year, networks crank out more holiday telemovies and holiday-theme series episodes. And every year, those same networks want to repeat and recycle as much old holiday inventory as possible – and do it earlier every year, so they can repeat more of those hours and sell and place more holiday-related ads.

The only holiday movie I watch anymore is A Christmas Story, which we all know TNT is going to rerun for 24 hours straight on Christmas Eve. I’ll watch it once, maybe twice this holiday season. Most of the Christmas movies I saw as a child are considered too cheesy to air today. Last year, only about half of them actually aired. When they were on television, I was so sick of the holiday that I didn’t even bother to watch them. By the time the holiday actually arrives, we’ll all be so disgusted by Christmas themed stuff that we will be looking forward to waking up on the 26^th of December.

I loathe this time of year. I used to get mildly upset when Christmas started happening the week of Thanksgiving, since I am an old fuddy-duddy and want to stick to the traditional ways of no Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. Now, when I start seeing the decorations and sales start on November 1^st, I completely lose all joy for the holiday and wish it would go away. I don’t enjoy Christmas because I’m sick of seeing the decorations and sale after sale boasting that I need all this stuff to make my holiday complete.

I understand that stores are out to make a buck and need to maximize their profits as much as they can but they have lost money on me. I now hate Christmas and hate it earlier each year. I hate the consumerism of the holiday. I hate the greediness that retailers have taught society. I despise that people who take more pleasure in being greedy and asking for stuff than giving and being helpful to others.

I suppose I’ll just go back indoors now and wait until 2007 arrives. In the meantime, I’ll keep shouting at the kids that keep playing on my lawn. Bah Humbug indeed.

This is pure rant. I’m pissed. When I leave for work in the morning, it’s still slightly dark outside. About three miles down the road, it’s light enough that you don’t need your headlights on. Still, the idiots out on the road think you do and most of them have their high beams on.

I come across these “special” drivers every time I drive in the dark. It’s especially nasty when you are coming around a blind curve and high beams blind you, making it near impossible to see anything on the road for a few moments. It’s just great that I can’t see the numerous deer and turkeys that love to run across the roads, yet alone any other car coming towards me.

And don’t tell me not to drive that way. There are only two roads I can take. Both have blind curves. I take the one with less blind curves but there is no other way for me to go.

I also despise the idiots who think it’s necessary to drive with their high beams on WHILE THEY ARE BEHIND ME! I mean, WTF? Is it now some sort of law that you need to blind the person in front of you? Did you never learn the proper way to drive?

What’s worse is the people coming towards me that have their high beams on and flash their lights at me because I don’t even have my lights on. Why you ask? Well, maybe it’s because it’s three o’clock in the fucking afternoon and it’s bright and sunny out. The sky even looks like the sky in the opening of the Simpsons. Seriously, why the hell would I have my lights on then, yet alone my high beams?

Did the human race somehow de-evolve in the last twenty years? Has our eyesight become that bad that we now need lights on during the daytime? Has the sun dimmed that much that we need additional daylight see the road?

This doesn’t seem to be a phenomenon that’s exclusive to just my part of New York. Friends and family members in other parts of the state complain about the same thing. I have friends in Nebraska, Washington, Nevada, and North Carolina that say it’s true there too. Maybe we’re all a bunch of whiners. I’d rather look upon it as being superior to most other drivers. We at least have better eysight than these “special” people.

Really, I’ve used my high beams about ten times in the 21 years I’ve been driving. Maybe I missed some new regulation the last time I renewed my license, but I don’t recall headlights 24/7 and high beams 99% of the time being the norm. I think these people are just idiots.