Oh hell no! This is why deep down inside I believe I�m a bit of a masochist. I can�t think of any other reasonable explanation why I keep doing this.

So I head out to Wal-Mart and hope to trade in my extra copy of Chasing Amy on DVD for something I don�t already own. I�m pretty sure this DVD was not even bought in town let alone at a Wal-Mart, but they don�t need to know this. Actually I know for a fact it could not have been bought at this Wal-Mart because I�ve been searching for this DVD for years and never once have I seen it there.

I�m not worried about this since 1) the DVD still has the shrink wrap on it and 2) there are no distinguishing marks on it to tell where it comes from.

Since a late nap on Christmas day fucked up my sleeping schedule, I headed out to Wal-Mart first thing in the morning. This turned out to be a good thing because at that early the gift exchange rampage had not turned into an impromptu gladiator match. Thankful I wasn�t forced to decide on the yay or nay of the crowd to off my opponent. I made my way up the chained off areas they had pre-set for gift returns.

I already had my speech to convince them ready in my head, prepared for any surprise that might come up. Amazingly I can be a pretty good actor when the need arises.

What do you mean this DVD wasn�t bought at a Wal-Mart? But I swear they told me it was bought from a Wal-Mart�.my mom lied to me.

Oscar caliber acting mingled with the sympathy factor, you are golden my friend.

Only I didn�t need to act when it came down to it. It was not a problem getting them to take the DVD for store credit so I can get a replacement DVD. The problem is they where sure the DVD was part of this price buster sale they had a week ago. So they where only willing to give me around five bucks for the DVD.

First off I know for sure this DVD can�t be that cheap. I�ve never seen this DVD at that cheap of a price anywhere on the net or in the DVD clubs I�ve looked through. Second off they didn�t even have the DVD in the first place, ever. So you know they wouldn�t buy a brand new DVD, especially something of this caliber, then stick it on a sale shelf with the DVD�s they just can�t sell.

Only I can�t tell them this because I might then blow my bluff and they�ll realize I know this DVD isn�t from Wal-Mart.

Damn it, my bluff back fired on me.

So I told them no, if it�s that cheap I�d rather keep it for trading purposes. Oh and would you mind so much if you called the bus service for me. Thank you so much and tell them my destination is Meijer.

HAH! Yes I just blew my bluff right there, but I already was taking the DVD back. I could see it in the guy�s eyes that he knew my story was full of shit and I was going to Meijer to give them the same speech for exchange of store credit. Yet there wasn�t a damn thing he could do about it.

Oh I took far too much pleasure in that moment.

At Meijer, as I suspected, things when exceptionally better. With no distinguishing marks to tell what store this DVD was bought from it was easy to exchange it there. Hell I know they have the DVD there. That is where I got my copy from and I�ve seen they have replaced it since then.

Wal-Mart offered me $5.30 for the DVD, Meijer offered me $16.95 for the DVD.

Now everyone quietly sit there, count to three in your head, and say it with me.

1�2�3

Wal-Mart sucks ass!

Yes, I feel much better now. I have my replacement DVD and the final lesson my brain needed to finally never step through the Wal-Mart doors ever again.

Unless�

Fuck, maybe I am right about being a masochist.

Here is a piece of information that has stunned and surprised me.

Thanks to my work on this diary I have been asked to write up a comedy routine for a Cincinnati based radio show.

Seems a radio DJ of twenty years has read my diary and was so impressed with my comedy that he wants me to work on a bit for his show. Now the radio show is only a local station and is on a volunteer basis, which means no pay, but it does mean a good reference I can use for future purposes. That and it might only be a local radio station, but it airs world wide on the internet. This becomes obvious when they get phone calls from listeners from as far off as Australia.

So for the next few days I�ll be working hard on a few ideas and hope I don�t blow this opportunity.

With as much confidence that he has in me and the fact this is the first time he has asked a writer to do this for his show in twenty years. I feel pretty good with my odds here.

I�ll let you all know how this goes once I�m done writing up the bit and see what his reaction to it is.

Now here comes something I find disturbing.

A couple days before Christmas I received a card from the small pizza chain Hungry Howies. Curious I opened it up expecting to see a simple flier from them with a few coupons attached.

Turns out I was wrong. First off the thing looks like a card you would buy in a large pack and send off to family and friends during the holidays. The inside of it was signed by what I believe would be every employee of the place. And with this card came a coupon for one free large pizza with two toppings with my name on it.

It was quite nice and had a somewhat personalized feel to the card. And quite frankly I�m seriously disturbed by this.

First off I recognize it as a brilliant marketing strategy. I�m assuming they have kept a data base on there computer and anyone who fit into a certain criteria was sent one of these cards with the coupon. Keep your repeating costumers happy and feeling special.

Now this is what is disturbing me about this whole thing. First off I had no clue I had ordered so much pizza from them in the past year to warrant such a thing. Judging by the personalized nature of this card I�m assuming they didn�t send too many of these out. About ten different people signed the card and the coupon is hand written for whom it�s for and what you get for free. With that in mind you know they didn�t blanket send these out to anyone who has a mail box. That would be literally thousands upon thousands of cards they would have to do. There is no way they would have done that.

So that means some how I fit into a special criterion of being a �very good costumer.� This kind of freaks me out to know I�ve eaten that much pizza in the past year. Well I haven�t eaten it all, really. I�ve had plenty of times that friends have come over and ordered from Hungry Howie�s to be delivered to my address.

Still that would have to mean I spent a good amount of money on pizza to warrant something like this. That doesn�t bode well on my ability to eat good when I had to spend hundreds of dollars on pizza last year alone.

Part of the reason this promotional gimmick is brilliant with a costumer like me, something I�m sure taken into account, is the fact I have it all delivered. This means I�ll have this free pizza delivered to me meaning I would have to spend money one way or another. First off I�d have to pay for the delivery charge and add on the fact they have a minimum seven dollars worth of food to have it delivered. This would mean that even though I�m getting a free pizza I�d still have to buy at least seven dollars worth of something else to get it.

So it�s brilliant of them to give up a little money to take in some more and build costumer loyalty. Only I don�t think they realized that sending this to me would put me in a certain panic mode about my eating habits thus making me want to reduce the amount of pizza I�ll order.

Still I do feel kind of special here. Like the warm embrace of a lover my favorite pizza place has taken me in and given me a certain level of love not easily found in this world for a guy like me.

Fuck me that is pretty fucking sad.

It's about time - Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2004
An Honor for Chrome - Friday, Feb. 20, 2004
A great loss - Monday, Oct. 20, 2003
a terrible announcement. - Tuesday, Sept. 09, 2003
Chrome speaks: - Friday, Sept. 05, 2003