J-Man: Imaginary Ninja

So, today I finally decided to use my gift certificates that I got for Christmas and my birthday on some clothes at the mall. I was bored...it's slow at work...so I headed over there around 2 PM, and after an hour or so of shopping (way more than my norm, but what else do I have to do) I walked out with six shirts, and two pairs of cargo khakis. Man, do I love those cargo khakis, and my old ones have a tear in the crotch, so this was perfect timing.

Anyway, as you can picture this scene, it involves me wandering around the mall and dropping into Old Navy, JC Penney, Nordstroms, Express (yeah, they have men's stuff...and it's nice), Gap, J.Crew, Banana Republic and even Guess. And I'm doing all of this alone. Well, after a few minutes of wandering in and out of stores by myself, I realize I need the input of someone else in buying clothes. I'm color blind to begin with and I suck at picking out clothes. Usually, if I shop alone, I buy a bunch of stuff, hate all but one of the things I bought, and sit with the other clothes in my closet for several years because I'm too lazy to return them and too proud to give them away to Salvation Army.

So, rather than burden other people in the store with my problems, I begin talking and discussing the clothing options with myself. Yes, this might be construed as insane, but I had some really good insights about which clothes looked best on me, and since I wasn't acting alone, I felt more confident with my choices.

After an hour of this, my mind is running like mad, coming up with wild ideas since I'm talking to myself. I'm done with my shopping and start walking outside. I'm parked over by Old Navy, which is near the bus stop, so lots of people are heading out this way as well. Anyway, as I make my way outside, I take a few steps when a kid, maybe about 16 or so, comes running up behind me and bumps into my bag.

Now usually, I'd just shrug this off as he continues running along towards the bus, but since I'm bordering on insanity after having been talking and shopping with myself for the past hour, the idea crosses my mind that he was attempting to steal my bag.

It is at this point, when my imagination takes over and thankfully none of this truly went down...but in my alternate world, he grabbed my bag and started running. So I started chasing after him. Luckily, he's shorter than me so I start catching up to him and lunge for him. I'm able to tackle him to the ground, but I don't know if I can merely grab the bag from him and asume I'll be able to walk away...so I begin punching him in and about the head. I yell for someone to call the police as I continue to beat down on him, fearful that if I stop smacking him in the head, (and now I've moved on to kneeing him in the chest,) that he'll have a chance to return the favor or pull out a weapon. I slowly make my way to standing, as he lies on the ground. I've gotten my bag back and I order him to stay down. He keeps trying to get up, so now I'm forced to stomp him on the back and kick him in the chest and stomach with my Timberland boots. A scene is developing around us, but I'm not letting this guy up.

Finally, the police show up, but they're wondering if they should arrest me, as the kid is a bloody mess. They start questioning me and ask me what happened, and I tell them:

This is why men shouldn't go shopping.

Expired

So, I've got a football game in an hour and I just decided that I want to grab something quick and light so I have energy but I'm not weighed down. I walk into my pantry and see my boxes of cereal, and I'm like...perfect. I know I just bought some milk a couple weeks ago when I went to the grocery store, so I grab a box of Berry Blast Cheerios (which are great, by the way). It's a little light, so I notice I have a second one, so I grab it as well, in case I don't have enough in the first one. The second box has a little bit more in it, but it's also less than half full. Wonder why I opened a second...oh well.

So I open up the box and pour some Cheerios into a bowl. The Berry Blast variety has some dried fruit in it as well, and as I gaze upon the dried fruits, I'm thinking something doesn't look quite right. I don't now how to better explain it, but it looks like the dried fruit...is dried out. Moreso than usual?? The raspberries are downright scary so I take a gander at the box and try to locate the expiration date. JUNE 06. Well, that ain't good, these are over seven month expired. So I dump the bowl and check the other box. Even worse: NOV 05. Yeah, I ain't kidding you. 2005!!!! I didn't even bother to open up the packaging. I walked back into the pantry and saw some Fruit Harvest...DEC 05. Some other odd granola and fruit thing...MAY 06. Ok, I have a serious problem with eating cereal on a timely basis here.

Thankfully, I had seen some Boo Berry on the shelves at Target back around Halloween and decided to grab a box for old time sakes. I mean, these are like the caviar of monster cereals. You can find Count Chocula all the time...Franken Berry here and there...but Boo Berry was the thing of legends when I was 8. Kids would claim they'd eaten them, but there was never any solid proof. Anyway, I checked the box: MAY 07. Hell yeah. But then that got me thinking about two things:

1) If this expiration date is MAY 07 and I remember buying it in October, how old must those other boxes have been????!!!!

2) I just ate a bowl of super sweet blueberry flavored cereal with purple colored milk and I'm about to go play football now.

This might not have been the best idea after all.

Brain Farts 8

Well, been a long time once again and I blame the Holidays, excessive drinking, and illness for the latest delays. Rather than dwell on the past and retell stories of the past couple weeks at this time, I'm gonna throw out a bunch of things that I've been thinking about or seeing lately, in yet another installment of Brain Farts: Not quite the full shit, but still entertaining:

• So with the recent head cold I've gotten, I've been forced to stay inside and kill most of my afternoons (I don't work full days this time of year) watching TV or movies while lying in bed. This, sadly, gets very old very fast. That is why yesterday, I decided to give myself something new to waste my time with. And this is where things got ugly. I went to White Flint, into the video game store, and picked myself up a copy of Final Fantasy XII. Yes, I know...but it gets worse. I then took my new treasure home and headed into my basement, where my PS2 is located. The configuration of the couches was not condusive to the amount of playing that would be necessary, so I grabbed the loveseat and rotated it so that it is facing directly at the television, about 7 feet from the big screen. I then brought down my comforter from my bed, a pitcher of water and gatorade, lit a fake log in my fireplace and settled into my new Nerd Fort for the next 7 hours. Yes, 7 hours. Hell, at least it's not World of Warcraft.
• So I was just reading that Dodger stadium is going to be introducing a new "all-you-can-eat" seating section in right field. You pay $35 (as opposed to $10 for standard left field) and you can eat all the hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn, nachos and soda you want. This could arguably be the greatest and sickest idea I've ever heard of. I feel sick after two hot dogs...if I'm challenged by the words "all-you-can-eat", it's gonna be a bad scene in the bathroom by the 7th inning stretch. If RFK adds this to the repertoire, look out.
• You ever buy something at a store and when you go to pay for it, you feel like the checker is judging you? Since I'm not feeling well, I went to Giant to get some drugs. Well, Sudafed was on sale for 2 for $6. Being the thrifty Jew I am, I grabbed four boxes and took them to the checkout. The lady gave me this look like I was doing something illegal. Or maybe she didn't, and I'm just paranoid from all the drugs?
• I guess that's better than when I went to the Target a couple weeks ago and bought a 36 pack of condoms and 6 gatorades. Awkward.
• Why are dogs afraid of helium balloons? Regardless of whether I show them to be non-threatening, Chloe refuses to walk by a helium balloon. She got trapped upstairs the other day after one that had floated up to the skylights finally fell down onto the stairs. Naturally, I didn't want my dog to be afraid in her own house, so I grabbed a knife and stabbed all 20 balloons that were left in my house from my birthday.

Alright, that's it for now. I promise I'll write an entry summing up the cruise from last month as well as my birthday fiasco, which is a new J-Man classic. Until then...