The companies that hire traveling salespeople have his upon an idea that, God help us, may just have some success.

Hot chicks.

Keep in mind, I'm not making this up. I rarely make anything up for this page, and when I do you can usually tell.
I was at work the other day, and I went out to my car to get my ZipZap. On my way out, I was chased down by a quite attractive girl. Her first words were "hey, honey, what kind of cologne do you wear?"
Weird question to ask a person of my characteristics, I must say. But I knew where it was going because I constantly have to shoo these people out of my store. Not hot girls, usually black guys whose professional outfits don't match their unprofessional hairstyles.
So I blew her off and went about my business.

But if I weren't twice as cynical as the average fat guy, and if I weren't experienced in avoiding and disposing of salespeople, I probably would have listened to her spiel, tried her samples, and maybe even bought something.

The peddlers of crappy products have finally hit upon what the alcohol and tobacco industries have known all along. But if boobs in media work so well, boobs in person must be better.

They're probably right. God help us all.

12:17 AM

I really do need someone to follow me around with a portable music keyboard and an mp3 jukebox so I can have a soundtrack. Because I want very badly to get in an argument with a customer, perhaps for calling them a radioactively beheaded Oompa Loompa, and then have someone cue the Generic Star Trek Fight Music! (MP3 download, 1.8 megs)

11:31 PM

Tonight someone got mad at me personally because we didn't have the obscure audio cable he wanted. I actually had to explain the reason to him: "Well, quite simply it's because it's not economical for us to carry every length of audio cable with every plug configuration known to Man. We may not have what you want in one piece but we can assemble it for you. If you still want the precise configuration you've described in a single part, we carry a fine line of bulk wire, cable ends, and soldering irons."

I have a way of rendering people speechless sometimes. It's a gift.



Random tangent: When it comes right down to it, Winamp3 is a big letdown.

1:17 AM

And then it hits me... do I really NEED Acrobat Writer? Or Frontpage 2002? Am I ever going to need to make a PDF or do anything with HTML that I can't do by hand? Probably not. But it's FREE!

Kazaa! It's almost like an exclamation! Ka-zaaaa!

8:06 PM

Poor, poor Algore.

Once the vice president of the United States, before that a respected Senator, now just a guy with an opinion that carries as much weight as yours or mine.

His suits aren't tailored as well, his hair isn't a professional sculpture, and he's got a little 5-o'clock shadow.

I love it. The only thing that would make it better is if he got cancer or something. Damned tree hugger. Suck my hairy balls, Mr. Anti-Internal-Combustion.

12:40 AM

I have found the secret to cooking. MSG. Yes, I know, there's a school of thought that says MSG can cause cancer and brain damage and heart attacks and the end of civilization as we know it, but fuck them.

The only thing better than MSG is a bat carrying a block of wax.

This message brought to you by the National MSG Consortium and by generous contributions from The National Wax Association and The Count and Countess Dracula Foundation.

7:51 PM

This is probably the most sentimental blog I've posted to date. Sorry.

I don't know if I've ever said this, but all in all I have a great family.

Seriously.

I tried to drive to my Dad's house for his birthday party tomorrow. I failed. My car started smoking BAD. I went home. Very unhappy.
I haven't seen my dad in months, and I got him a cool present for his birthday. Ever heard of ZipZaps? You will.

Anyway, I called him to apologize and say happy birthday anyway. Then he asks my stepsister to drive up and get me. She's going to drive a total of 200 miles just to bring me down for a day.

Isn't that awesome?

6:48 PM

Stupid Blogger killed my template. That's OK. I've been planning to simplify for a while now. Just means there'll be a default, crappy template up here for a while, until I trick it out a little.

New feature: Images!

Whatever happened to this cute little guy?

12:59 AM

I am the second happiest man on Earth. I say second only because I know that any given moment, someone somewhere is having sex.

In the past 48 hours, I've eaten an Uncle Ben's individual pasta bowl, and 6 Excedrins. No time to eat. Must surf. Must download.

2:30 PM

I just downloaded IE 6 SP1 in less than 3 minutes. I am much happy.

We so happy, we do the dance of joy!

10:12 PM

I just had an... interesting customer leave here.

She had giant breasts, and she paid an $18 ticket in ones.
What do you think she does for a living?

2:48 PM

Old people really are going to drive me crazy. My grandfather is endlessly annoying. He's an old person. The company that sold me my crappy car? Run totally by two old people. My most irritating cow-orker? An old person. My customers? Well who has time to waste shopping while the rest of the world works? Old people.

11:21 AM

Our UPS guy is going to kill someone someday. He drives his big brown tank at way higher speeds than are appropriate for a parking lot.

Isn't it fun to transpose letters in a phrase and try to determine the new meaning? Like we know what a parking lot is, but what would a "larking pot" be?

1:32 PM

I hate checks. I hate when people pay with checks. It's like saying, "I don't have any actual money with me, but I have money you can't actually see in a far away place, so take this piece of paper that says you can have some of that money later."

I hate checks, but I love Chex. Figure that one out.

Within every individual there is a community of smaller individuals. My community can't decide between Taco Bell or Wendy's.

"Eight-Legged Freaks is the best movie with David Arquette fighting mutant spiders that I've ever seen!" - Captain Murphy

8:53 PM

I really shouldn't leave this window open like I;ve been doing today. It allows me to express myself far too easily. And the strangely-accented voice in my head tells me I'm too crazy to express myself like this. He says people will think bad things about me if I type whatever';s on my mind. @Well I think he's stupid. And so are plastic keyboardf covers. And water towers. What's up with them?

2:57 PM

It's a good thing it's Tuesday. If this was Friday I'd be dead by now. 5 hours running the Shack by myself. Ick. Thank God for Internet. Internet and caffeine. And TV. No TV and no Internet would make Kip something something. Go crazy? Don't mind if I do!

Yay for the Simpsons. HOORAY

I'm thinking of growing a ponytail. And then trimming my beard, which has a rapidly increasing rabbinical quality, back into a goatee like I had it 3 years ago. But I never had a ponytail before. Would The Kip look funny with a ponytail and goatee? I mean funniER. More funny. More funnier.

Hughes communications satellites are beaming secret commands into Martha Stewart's brain! Martha Stewart will lead the squirrels to ultimate victory!

2:52 PM

I think if we keep the Shack cold enough the customers will leave faster. Especially the ones in wife-beater shirts. God, I hate those people. THEY ARE UNDERSHIRTS, DAMMIT !

I have to work alone for a long time today. Longer than I can ever remember working alone before. Thank God for the wonderful variety of legal central nervous system stimulants.

10:14 AM

Projectile vomiting is cool only when it occurs in the realms of fiction or hypotheticalness. It sucks in reality.

There was a brief spurt of new POKEYs lately but it has stopped. Why did it stop?

Cars suck. I want a hovercraft. Or a transporter, or pneumatic tube, or bullet train, or autogyro, or slipgate, or rolling road, or jetpack, or something. No, I'll tell you what I want. I want a chariot. No, a throne carried by slaves. No, monkeys. A monkey-borne throne would be cool. With a 6 speaker stereo.

I just sold two cell phones to a little whore and her sugar daddy. Don't ask how I can tell this, I just can. She couldn't have been more than 16 but she had remarkable tits, he was an immigrant (and you know a lot of those foreigners don't share our concept of "underage"), and she kept telling him to shut up while I set up the account and rang up the phones.

Lava lamps are cool. Always have been, always will be. Though knowing how they work kind of reduces their coolness factor just a little.

How long can a person survive on frozen mexican foods and various Keebler and Nabisco products?

Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" is the best TV programming block ever. Sealab 2021 is without a doubt the best cartoon ever made since the dawn of time. The evolution of art from cave paintings to CGI is over, and Sealab 2021 is the culmination of the process.
"Like veal, only... babies."

8:36 PM

I'm going to put the list on hold for a little while. It's just too much. I should make a list of people I DON'T hate.

Did you ever notice how some men have faces that need mustaches on them? And even when they shave you can see where the mustache should be?

12:43 PM

The List

(This list was mainly compiled over the course of 9-1-02 to 9-5-02, with sporadic additions thereafter. It is not internally consistent, it is decidedly hypocritical, it may be redundant AND it might repeat itself, and I, like most people, overlook these glaring flaws in people I know personally and believe to have redeeming qualities.)

In general, I hate the following types of people:

Old people. Children. Foreigners. Stupid people. People traveling in groups. Teenagers. Anyone who plays their stereo too loud. People who excessively modify their cars. People who want to touch things in glass cases even though they have no intention of buying them. People who want to look at the back of A/V equipment. People who can't speak English even though they're in the U.S. Military. People who think that one company can definitively tell them another company's policies. Telephone operators. Crazy dog lovers. People with "clever" bumper stickers. Comic store regulars. Female bartenders. People who complain about ATM fees. High-budget porn directors. Retards. Male stewardesses. Microsoft-haters. Democrats. People who were born in the U.S. and still can't speak English. Rednecks. Women who refuse to age gracefully. Men who refuse to age gracefully. Most homosexuals. Porn actresses who stop doing the good stuff once they make it big. Pushy salespeople. Bad drivers. Friendly people. People who make things up if they don't know the right answer. People who overcomplicate things. People who make a living impersonating someone else. People who act like their race entitles them to special treatment. People who blame other people for the transgressions of their forefathers. Libertarians. Alcoholics. People who blame low-level employees for executive decisions. Environmentalists. TV commercial actors. Animal rights activists. Pro-abortion activists. Anti-abortion activists. People who think they're being assertive when they're actually just being loud. People who only think that they're smart. Parents who think their kids' behavior is the fault of anything but their parenting. People who choose vegetarianism (some people will understand that distinction better than others). People who say "quote, unquote" excessively. People who pronounce "nuclear" nuke-you-lar. People who repeat advertising catch phrases. Anti-smoking whiners. People who get mad when you correct them. Lawyers. Policemen who flaunt their power. Women who get breast implants and then complain about people leering at them. Transvestites. Telemarketers. People who think they can guess my passwords. People who swear by products with no empirical data. People who question my ability to do my job. People who get mad when they can't find accessories for decade-old products. People who expect major chains to carry obscure parts in store stock. Anyone who actually believes "the customer is always right". "Mothers Against" anything. Most artists. Parenting "experts." "People" who "use" an "excessive" number of "quotation marks." People who hate their own ethnic group. Historians. People who smell. People who refuse to acknowledge their farts. Women with nice bodies and ugly faces. People who don't take responsibility for choosing to use unhealthy products. The handicapped. Excessively hairy people. Struggling artists. Plagiarists. OS zealots. Sci-fi zealots. Religious Zealots. Feminists. Communists. Puerto Ricans. Miami Cubans. Dentists. TV psychics. Anyone involved with "reality" TV. Female lip-sync artists. Boy bands. Country musicians. Rappers. People who like female lip-sync artists, boy bands, country, or rap. Amateur radio fanatics. Anyone directly related to sports. Sports fans. The Babylonians. Employees of the US Patent Office. 31337 |-|4><0r5. People with more than two children. Mountain climbers. Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists. People who knock on locked retail store doors. People who are picky about ending sentences with prepositions. People who say "ain't." Goths. The NAACP. News organizations that beat dead horses. People who see dead celebrities. People who refuse to give up hope. People who state the obvious. Conspiracy theorists. Puppeteers. People who don't like orange soda. Joggers. People who can't figure out a punch-card ballot. People who are still complaining about how the idiots who were too stupid to vote gave Dubya the election. People who think bowling is a sport. People who think golf is a sport. People who think ping-pong is a sport. People who think cheerleading is a sport. People who are obsessed with cult movies that I don't like. People who don't like cult movies I DO like. Boring people who don't know they're boring. Insurance salesmen. People who use cell phones while they drive. Bad actors. Cigarette store patrons. Delivery drivers. Caucasians who run Chinese restaurants. Prop comics. Corporate IT support guys. People who put things on layaway. People who say "happy holidays." Whiny web cartoonists. People who brush their teeth anywhere but their own bathrooms. Scientists who argue over celestial/elemental names. Non-smokers who don't respect smokers' rights. Smokers who don't respect non-smokers' rights. People who buy things at one store and return them at another even though the original store is within pissing distance. People who expect me to violate company policy, for any reason, ever. Entomologists. Anti-gun nuts. People who fear cancer from cell phones. People who don't like MacGyver. Wal-Mart greeters. Wal-Mart patrons. Everyone involved with the last two seasons of the X-Files. Devout Catholics. Anyone who jokes about having a "99 cent coin." People who go over the minutes on the cellular plan they chose and complain at me about it. Celebrity activists. Funeral processions. Atheists. People who complain about convenience fees. People who enjoy karaoke. Aerobic instructors. Local heroes. People who want discounts or free stuff. People who say "bling bling" for any reason other than to question or deride the use of the term "bling bling." Old single women. People who have sex with animals. Fortune cookie writers. People who shop at Old Navy or the Gap. People who run errands for other people and then get mad when I ask questions they didn't get answers to. People who deposit large amounts of change at the bank when there's a long line and only two windows open. The KKK. Neo-Nazis. The Nation of Islam. The ACLU. People who try to foist their religion on you when you're at work. People who buy cheap stuff and then get mad when it breaks. People who expect a commissioned salesperson to help them find a handful of capacitors. People who don't understand the difference between "peak" and "off-peak" airtime. People who think they can scam me. People who get mad when they get the display model of an item that's clearance priced. Helpless women. People who try to do their shopping over the phone. Farmers. People who get mad at others for their own bad credit. People who try to regulate morality. People who try to stop others from abusing their bodies. People who park backward. Vocal minorities. People who pay in coins. Irish dancers. Anyone who claims to enjoy disgusting ethnic foods like chitterlings or haggis. Clowns. People who don't understand simple phrases like "new activations only." People who expect me to provide telephone support for a $3 part. People who shop in packs. People who drag their large numbers of screaming kids everywhere. Bicycle riders. Show parents. Record store patrons. Every Pope I've ever met. Ad guys. "Professional" video game players. Anyone who says "my bad." People who borrow money from friends and then get mad when the friends want to be paid back. People who mistreat their pets. Nature photographers. Metermaids. Federal wildlife marshals. Anyone on any UPN show except Buffy and Enterprise. Carjackers. Anyone who builds their own wooden deck. Balloon animal makers. People who want Creation taught in schools. People who own brand new cars and still buy groceries with food stamps. People who believe tabloids. Hypnotists. Surgeons General. People who lobby for new bike paths. Non-professional airplane pilots. Non-American astronauts. People who talk about their bowel habits. People who call people they don't know "buddy." People who call people they don't know by their first names. Wife-beaters. People with webbed fingers. People who joke about rhyming with the word "orange." Anyone with a hat, shirt, bumper sticker, or key chain that says anything about fishing. Fan-fiction writers. Minstrels. People who leave their house smelling of drugs. People who ask complete strangers for directions. People who expect a store to make excessive change or change without purchase. Voluntary line and/or square dancers. Car salespeople. Skateboarders. Rollerbladers. Unions. Uncertified "professionals." Cheap rich people. People who don't carry enough ID. People who don't like Pokey. All the Baldwins.

And of course... Canadians.

This will never be finished.

6:11 PM

Did you ever notice that the bad guys are never "Captain" anything? There are Generals, there are Colonels, there are too many Lords and Doctors and Professors to list. But there are no Captains. I want to be an evil Captain. Captain Villainy, Captain Despicable, Captain Hideous, Captain Unpleasant, Captain Annihilation, or just plain Captain Evil.

I like my mother's dog. He's ugly but very friendly. And I think he's retarded. And he thinks my cell phone is evil.
I wish my mom asked me to dog-sit/house-sit more often. They have satellite TV and my stepfather has almost as much porn as I do.

I had to fix my mother's telephone NID to get online at all. A little compressed air, some waterproof lubricant, back up and running. Jack of all trades, The Kip is. Master of few, but jack of all. What the fuck does that mean, exactly? "Jack" of all trades. Like a playing card, or the device for lifting cars, or the metal spiky thing you play with with a bouncy ball?

3:10 PM