Thoughts
- Over the weekend I got to go to a birthday party for a 4-year old. Don't ask me why I was at 4-year old's birthday party, but hey, it was fun. They had a magician and everything. He did a bunch of cool tricks, brought a real rabbit for the kids to pet, and made balloon airplanes, dinosaurs, and Little Mermaids at the end. The only bad part is, I didn't get a bag of party favors at the end. I kept wishing I was 4 again. But I think for my 24th birthday, I'm gonna have to get a magician too. Then I'm inviting all you guys to my birthday party so you can get me awesome gifts like sparkle lotion and books about horses.
- My week and a half break for Christmas/New Years is still a couple weeks away, but even before I get to enjoy it, I'm already worrying about how much it's gonna suck to go back to work after it's over. Mondays are already enough of a pain after a 2-day weekend, that I can't shake the feeling of how miserable a Monday after a 12-day break is gonna be. I've figured out that the problem isn't really because working sucks that much, it's more because "not working" is just that awesome. By now, I'm pretty much used to working Monday through Friday, and I think my job is pretty good overall. But obviously when you compare it to weekends, holidays, or vacations, of course it's gonna suck. Anyways, I should probably stop thinking so far ahead, it's gonna prevent me from enjoying my break in the first place.
- When I signed up for a cell phone plan, it was supposed to be for $39.99/month. But every month, I end up paying about $47-48 on my bill. The thing is, I don't ever go over on my minutes, and I don't use any of the optional services like downloading ringtones and stuff. This month, it reached a new high of about $49, which is just getting ridiculous. So I finally decided to look up my account info online and confirmed what I already knew, my monthly charges are supposed to be $39.99. The problem is, they tack on all these other charges in the form of fancy names so I don't know what they are. Basically, what it comes down to is that I'm paying about 8-10 bucks worth of "Taxes, Surcharges, or Assessments" and "Other Charges and Credits".
Also, as I was digging through the Cingular website and stumbled some fine print about a "Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee" which is supposed to "help defray costs incurred in complying with obligations and charges imposed by State and Federal telecom regulation". I'm taking this to mean that it all has something to do with the new law that forces wireless companies to let you keep your phone numbers, but I could be wrong. Now, hopefully this is only something that applies to new customers, but if I find out that I'm being charged this fee, even without switching companies, I'm definitely out the door. No hesitation whatsoever to leave this 2 and a half year relationship behind.
When will all these little fees and charges and assessments end? I'm tired of all this stuff adding up on my bill. As if I don't get "nickel and dimed to death" enough from playing Dave Chan in poker....
- The other day I saw this commercial for "Hip Hop Barbies". Hmmm... what's wrong with that picture? Now, I don't remember their names, but they were like "Tisha", "K.K. Lulu", or "Z-mo". It was pretty ridiculous, especially cause they all still have the smiling, big blue eyed Barbie face, just wearing hip hop clothes and their hair in braids. At least replace some of her pearly white teeth with gold fillings or something.
- There was also another Barbie commercial where they were casting spells and mixing up witches brew. Now that kind of stuff just really bothers me. If people don't want to believe in God, that's one thing, but is it really necessary to be promoting Satan by making something like witchcraft into a kids toy? I mean, Satanism is probably one of the last things you should ever want to mess with. But for some reason, our culture seems to think the subject is "cool" or "funny", I don't know what it is. With all due respect to the Harry Potter fans out there, I think it's horrible that the top selling books for children today feature a hero that is a witch. Can't we think of any other good subjects to write about? I also don't like the fact that so many TV shows and movies have these kinds of themes, as if Satan was just another genre of entertainment. I don't even understand why so many sports teams like to have mascots such as "Blue Demons" or "Red Devils". Now, I don't think I'm an extreme conservative when it comes to religion, but I definitely don't think this kind of stuff should ever be taken lightly. Or, maybe this does make me a conservative?
