So, okay. You put away all your Christmas decorations, finished watching the Booperbowls. enjoying the return of Nastycar and hoping for the light at the end of the tunnel while confused how to "celebrate" the one year anniversary of how your year became such a really crappy place. You're looking for the new "normal" or whatever the hell cliche' you want to spew.  Meanwhile I can do another entry filled with the useless things that makes up the junk blog. Can you believe this tree is over 16 years old and I only paid ten bucks for it? Good Ol' Dolgencorp. I think doing some of the things you did back before helps recover some of the way it was before there was a worldwide thing that changed everything. $10! My first Christmas tree that I could actually place decorations larger than a thimble on. Every day. (R)

I used to travel to the city of Brunswick all the time. I'd go to a thrift shop there where I'd hope of scoring a camera or two for a cheap price. That all dried up after a year, but I'd go looking anyway. I would have lunch at the Wendys or McDonalds and shop at the Dolgencorp Market or Big Lots or go to the Pawnera and drink coffee while writing stuff or drawing my little doodles. Plus, K-Mart. That ever present K-Mart. One of the last K-Marts in Ohio. A K-Mart where they didn't even take down the sign so that they could smack the denizens who shopped there for years in the face. K-Mart. Home of the 24.95 fold-able desk. This was it. The final visit to a K-Mart/Sears while that company was still interested in doing business. Are they still in business? Yes, this store went out pre-pansamatic, but to see the husk sitting there with a freshly re-paved parking lot... Funny, I took this with my crappy cell phone camera. Who knew that a few years later I wouldn't be using the Polaroid that I found at the thrift store that took great pictures.  All things must pass. I had Arbys for lunch. I couldn't go in and sit down at either Arbys or Wendys as of yet.

Why did I go? I needed an oil change. I had gotten an oil change at this very place a year before at about the same time. In that year, I hadn't driven 3000 miles. Really. I'm amazed. However, you should get it 3 months or three thousand miles whichever comes first? So, I should have gotten the oil change quicker than a YEAR LATER, but the deal is, really? Best if used by dates rarely are the date when you need to use the product by. Really? Had I driven less than 3000 miles in a YEAR? Yep. Other than to my moms house and to the grocery store or even the summer trip to Mentor for some King Gizzard music enjoyment I really haven't driven. At least, I got  the change done in LESS than 3000 miles, but it was a YEAR. Damn. What a fricken year.

I've been to a few places in the past few weeks as I try to reclaim, slowly but surely, the things that I was used to doing before the pansamatic happened. Maybe the year anniversary since Kobe Bryant awoke me to those things. I was sitting at this very Arbys when I found out. I went back a few weeks later and sat in the same booth while in the next booth there was a kid coughing away. The guardians didn't bat an eye despite all the talk of the outbreak in Seattle. This was the last time I ate inside a local Arbys. (The following week I was in Pitt and enjoyed the sauces shown in my last blog entry.) So, a lost a year to the day, I returned to this Arbys and well, I wouldn't have gone in and enjoyed my food anyway. I did make the joke: "Arbys! We have no seats!" Hahahaahahahhahhahhahhahhha. Crappy. I go to this Arbys because they still have the great "homestyle" fries, which are not the curly fries. They were a real treat as I sat in the parking lot of various strip center big box stores that were  out of business only to be joined by several others eating in their cars because Arbys didn't have the seats. Hahahahhahhahhahahhahahhah. Fudd.

Ahhh, what a difference an exit on a freeway makes. Here's the former White Castle that became an Avis Rent A Car joint that was reinvented into a Biggsby Coffee and Jimmy Johns subs  just a few short months before the pansamatic began. I love me some Jimmy Johns subs. Haven't had them for the past year. I loves me some Biggsby coffee. It's been a year. Across the street is the dead mall that was one of the first I'd attended when I was but a pup. Don't know if that had changed because I just wanted to do the coffee experience. This was the coffee shop that a year previous, I made the decision that I was going to Orlando despite my misgivings.  I had whatever coffee I wanted to pump out of the taps which was one of the things I liked about Biggsby that made me want to come back. Here Both Biggsby and Jimmy Johns had inside seating! There were peeps sitting in the Biggsby. I wasn't one of them...yet.  You know, if they had stores that were local to me, I'd go a lot more. They don't. Likely the pansamatic stalled that growth. Ever since Caribou left, the Cleveland market is really needing another coffee challenge. Caribou at Einsteins is not the challenge we needed also because of a handful of locations. Nervous Dog is a local chain that has kick ass coffee, but so few locations. Bucks is on every corner. Rah rah bucks. At this point I could sit in a Biggsby, not in a bucks. Another piece of abnormal "normal."

...and the second time I was back at a participating Wal-Store was to buy this. A real piece of nostalgia. It has a tape deck and a CD player. Wow. I already had one but the tape deck will not function and the CD player was questionable. Difference being? This one has an input! I can plug in my cell phone and listen to all my library that's not on CDs. Trouble being? It's not quite a boom box using the input, even with the volume cranked on my phone, but as it's meant for a sleep timer by my bed, it works. It also plays MP3 compact discs, I'm going to get the collection I used to carry in my car and put them to use. Oh yeah, it plays a CD as normal. Most cheapies now leave off a second of the next song playing. Not Sony. They don't use a cheap chip set. Is this the last Sony CD player made? They made the first and the first "portable"...so why should the be the last. Bring back BETA man! Come on man! F the digital video man.

Here is the aforementioned cheap boombox. I'd asked for same two years ago, and well, I got this one. I have several analog boom boxes including the cheapies I'd bought from TarJay. Hello Kitty branded, and they PLAYED CDs without cutting off the first second of each song. This one does cut off the intro, but since I had it handy as the pansamatic started and it has the aux input, I made it my living room entertainment center. I just discovered a setting on my cell phone that EQ's the sound and makes this cheap box sound like a REAL STEREO. Honest. I never thought EQ's were anything. Even when you could get those 50 EQ sliders with dancing lights that could fit in the ashtray of your car. They didn't do much. Well, this made the music sing. Oh yeah, and the sturdy box I use for a coaster holder while laying on my living room futon. Hotcha.

Now a few things that are silly junk from someone that can't throw anything away because it might once again find a use, Here's my K-Mart porta-desk in use with my living room office, sporting a "new" desk lamp. It's a BBQ light  with several LEDS that was dodgy when it was new. 3 "AAA" batteries in a holder to create light that you clamp onto your BBQ so you can see where you put that spatula. It worked for a short time but then I remember my brother being kind enough to put in a light on my garage and well, that was that with that. This dodgy light that never kept itself in working order too well eventually failed, but I kept it because it was a good vice grip and the neck bent and maybe I could fix it somehow. Enter a Dollar Tree light and some rubber bands. Light enough that the goose neck BBQ light can hold it in place and bright enough to be a real desk lamp.  Really junk. Reused. 

How am I going to power said battery powered item? Wow I have a lot of rechargeable batteries in various states of being useful. So, I dug up my Ray-O-Vac charger and my Duracell charger and my Energizer charger... The only one that works for the batteries it was designed for is the Duracell charger. It's designed for those high capacity batteries and other chargers just don't charge them that well. Otherwise, Energizer batteries work and I have a lot of them. Charge Charge Charge. I have $1 Dollar Tree LED lights for you to be used in or LED toilet lights that really consume battery power. Charge Charge Charge. Have you ever used your camera so much that you needed the second four back up Duracell batteries you got for it? No, but you never can tell when you'll need  a lot of flash pics of your trip to Orlando. Right? Charge. Charge. 

Lifetime warranty. Yeah right. Spend $5 to send in these things that cost $1 to get replacements in 5 years when they eventually fail. All of these do when they are used in the freezer or fridge to seal off bags.  These have magnets so they hang on the fridge. A few years ago, you couldn't find them except when they cost a princely $3. Here they are at my local for $1. Gotta stock up. Cheapdog. That's what I am.

Really. Cheepdog. I look at it as Adam Carolla does. Someone spent time to get all the materials together to produce this product, why let something go to waste if it can be reused. Yes, and here I go wasting a perfectly good Giant Eagle Family Napkin that could be cleaning up coffee shmutz or soup dribble from lunch to dry a paper clip I found resting under my refrigerator. A paper clip? Really? Yes, I've even circled back to rescue paper clips I saw discarded in the parking lots of participating Arbys restaurants. They are the big ones. I use the big ones. Many a time they have reset clocks or unlocked inside doors. At least I owned this one so it likely fell off of a folder and went under the fridge where it began it's dust gathering mission until I realized it was time to clean the dust from under my fridge. To quote Monty Python: "Every paper clip is sacred..." 

What's this then? Here I complained about the smell of this particular brand of hand sanitizer. I was so glad that I got done with it and that was that with that. What would possess me to buy MORE of it, especially when I can now bathe in Purell now that Purell is so available. It was so cheap! It's down to $2 a bottle and well, I felt that my friend in Pitt wouldn't believe me that this stuff smelled so bad, I'd have to get a bottle for him to smell and verify that this stuff really is the "Poopieeez" that I said it was. Okay fine. Nostalgia for last summer. Okay. Usually that takes 10 years or so, but last year. ...I'll work with that thought. However, I also bought the other bottle and this was a different formula with no alcohol.  It does NOT smell. It's the alternate hand sanitizing method that I've heard of that does not spontaneously combust on a hot day. Works pretty good. Coats the hands. Seems softening. Then I read up on them. I used to use Dial Anti Bacterial soap because it had a nice scent, but then I learned that TRICLOSAN was in it and that was that with that. Your soap is bad for the environment? Wait, in the last year, I learned that all antibacterial soaps and rinses were HOO HAW when you allow yourself the extra 10 seconds of washing your hands with ordinary SOAP? Yes, soap can do that. Who has time to really clean your hands for 20 seconds? Learning a lot these pansamatic days. This new hand sanitizer is just like my old soap, only dries by itself rather than rinsing. *face plants*  Not gonna make that mistake again. *Fills tub with Purell*

Speaking of disinfecting... You know that UV light works that way? Any gribblies that are crawling around cannot survive when blasted with UV light. They can't survive in the miocrowave either but what if your gribblies are on aluminum foil? What then? HUH?  I got this as a Christmas gift. It's a 5V UV chamber. Yes, it's a clone of the good patented idea by a leading blah blah blah that was advertising on the podcasts a few years ago. It's primarily for your cell phone. Put it in the chamber. It fires up the UV and a few minutes later, sanitized. You know your phone has more bacteria on it than a public toilet right? RIGHT? I've never talked to a PUBLIC toilet but there were a few times in my younger days where I've spoken with my friends toilets or my own toilet. "Hello Mr. Toilet, I'm now getting to know you all too well HWARRRRRRRRRFFFFFFFFF!" Okay, so, we'll all feel better if we zap our keys and phones and other small crap we carry in the outside world in this questionable knock off. It speaks REALLY LOUD and says something about being ready and when it's working.  Yep. I'm sure it's doing something. Effective? They wouldn't sell something that does nothing just to make a buck on people right? RIGHT? 

Everybody is cooking at home during the pansamatic. Everybody trying their hand at making that loaf of bread. It occurred to me. I can't cook or bake or anything. Hey, I'm going to go to the pizza buffet for dinner. Maybe I'll go to that Chinese buffet. You know the good one out in Streetsboro that has actual warm food? Maybe that Mexican buffet with the great lunch specials. Maybe go to the grand Golden Corral where if I have a walker with tray holders I can load up those tray holders with extra food. We're all fat here, so eat up! There's a chocolate fountain to dip s*it in when your done? Why not use it as your salad dressing? Couldn't hoit. Nahh, tonight, just the salad bar at Eat N' Park. Mmmmm great chili and fresh cornbread. What? All of that is over? *Snoopy Cry* Well, I love the brownies, but I don't eat the brownies because I love the brownies. The only time I'd enjoy a brownie with my meal was at CiCis pizza buffet. They had the edge pieces that were a little hard and the rest was chewy goodness. When they closed a majority of their restaurants, how was I ever going to taste that cheap brownie flavor? Mom bought me a pan. Now I can make them. No, they won't be POT brownies. I'd never allow something so simple and sweet as a delicious brownie to be soiled by those evil substances. 

Hmmmm. Crown Royal brownies. Oh, it wouldn't work. All the alcohol would bake out leaving a bizarre whiskey tasting brownie. *Breaks eggs, add mix, adds water* *Whistles* *Oil... Crown* *Whistles*  Hmmmm. 

Heh. Lets mellow out on this Saturday morning and watch some classic cartoons. This is the Tom and Jerry Hour. I liked it better than the Popeye hour. On the Popeye hour of cartoons, they show the black and white ones where everybody is bouncing up and down to a rhythm and Popeye punches Olive Oyl in the face to get her to "snap out of it". Then they show the color ones with the AAP logo where Bluto's brother Brutus took over in one of those unfortunate Three Stooges "Shemp" replacement deals. No, it was on to the Tom and Jerry hour. A cat chases a mouse and fake sings "If Your Ever Down In Texas, Look Me Up" sparking my every seven year old memory to sing along. I hoped the next one they would show would be one done by Chuck Jones that were more like Coyote and Road Runner cartoons only with less falling down a cliff scenes or explosions. Tom hissed in the intro to those cartoons. Wait? Did Popeye just punch Olive Oyl in the face? Mork would never do that to Shelly Duvall. They don't call it "Sweet Haven" for tourism. 

XTC said it best in their song "Dear God"  "I don't need a big reduction in the price of beer."  It's a pansamatic. We all make sacrifices. I've shown my case of Pabst beer before, and well I'm proud to say that it's still taking me 7-8 weeks to finish a 30 pack rather than every two weeks. It's my weekend treat. 4 Pabsts. In a tall glass. Ziggy Zocky Ziggy Zocky Ohy Ohy Ohy. However, the aluminum can shortage... Unlike the TP shortage which affected all of our asses or the meat shortage that caused some Wendys restaurants to not have the TRIPLE available, this one I really feel. 20.99. That's right. 20.99. I mean, when I first started buying beverage... I've bought 6 packs for 1.99 and I've bought 4 packs of micro/specialty beverage for 17.99 but PABST over 20 bucks? Cost of doing business. They don't have a production brewery. They contract from the Swiller corp. Swiller corp needs the cans for their beers. Pabst pays market price for this shortage of cans. Of course bottles have gone up as well but OVER 20 BUCKS FOR PABST? Hey, it's a treat and it likely costs even more in other markets. What the hell am I complaining for. Priorities man. Get yer jabs. 6 Feet. Mask over the shnodder. We're all in it together right? I AM NOT DRINKING MERLOT! *Skitch* *Pig Vomit in the movie Sideways.* *Thanks* -Junk Blog