Wallet Shopping

After successfully completing my iPod exchange, burning my extended warranty, I thought last night would be an appropriate time to finish my Christmas shopping. My mother told me to get a new wallet for my father. These days, we kids collectively buy crap for our parents, but I made an exception. My mother informed me that his wallet has been falling apart for quite a while. Whenever she suggests he pick up a new one, he says that I bought him the wallet for Christmas. I remember that I did buy a wallet for him for Christmas one year, but I think I was in college, back when you only used text commands to send email and when our VAX servers would routinely crash on Friday nights, leaving us without any newsgroup fix for the weekend. I'm guessing his wallet is pretty ratty, though I haven't regularly seen it since high school, when I would take $2 for lunch.

After completing my surrogate shopping mission at Target, picking up headphones for my nephew, I drove over to the Mall, yes the Mall where I spent many hours of my childhood in tow to my mother. I figured Sears would have a wallet section, so I started there. I walked into the pick-up section, triggering Gabby, the automated TV voice, letting me know how to pick up my order. I, as usual, made a bee line to where I thought the wallets were. Times have changed, and so has the Sears layout. After completely blitzkrieging the 40,000 square foot store in about three minutes, I found the purses. I figured the wallets would be nearby, but had no luck.

Next I headed to Boston Store, which used to be Prange's before that closed and Boston Store jumped across the way, from the site that was once Gimbles. Again, I started blitzkrieging and immediately found the purses. My kindergarten-learned apples and oranges analogy is useless in the Men's/Women's shopping arrangement as I found no wallets by the isles and isles of purses. Note: these isles were filled with many Midwestern-teddy-bear-sweatshirt-frumpy women. I carried on blitzkrieging, past the mannequins with which I conversed when my mother was taking too much time shopping, right into the Men's area and found a little turn shelf thing with wallets on them. It took me 1.578 seconds to know that these wallets sucked and that I was out of luck there. I completed my loop of the store, noting that the Men's jacket section must be where Midwestern-wolf-pack-shirt-frumpy men made their rounds, as the space dedicated to jackets was in 1:1 proportion with the purse section, unlike the puny wallet section.

I carried on, passing all the calendar, game, and painting kiosks in the general area and found Wilson's Leather Somethingorother. I figured they may have wallets and was right. Again, it was just and turning shelf thing, but after 3 minutes, I found one that didn't suck and didn't include any plastic picture holders. If my father still had my freshman year picture, I'd just assume he throw it. It then took me about four minutes to hike my ass through the general area, through Sears, past Gabby, and out to my car.

Anyway, this is how I shop. Since I rarely buy DVDs and prefer to hold my music as mp3's, I really no longer browse while shopping. Sometimes I wander at Best Buy or somewhere, given my obsession with gadgets, but I have my fill of those. I guess this helps me avoid the 95% of humanity that I do not like.

Anyway, Merry Christmas or whatever! I'm done with my shopping!

The List

Dave did it, so here's my list. I will have an actual post later today.

Bag of Spiders - Slumber Party
Black Curtains - Megadeth
Cherry Blossom Girl - Air
One Too Many Mornings - Bob Dylan
Free Fallin' - Tom Petty
Montage - Massive Attack
Push Me Down - Kitty Craft
Please Do Not Go - Violent Femmes
Rag Tag - Mercury Rev
Needle In The Hay - Elliot Smith

Poll

I'm think of putting up a new picture and thought I'd make a poll of it. Here's the choices:

Tom Wopat (current picture)
Ed Gein (last picture)
Young Me (original picture)
Some Other Picture of Me
Jeffrey Dahmer
Liberace
Harry Houdini
Tyne Daly
Russ Feingold
Orson Welles
Violent Femmes
John Muir
Willem Dafoe
Gene Wilder
Daniel Hoan
Emil Seidel

All of these are Wisconsinites. Or I can take suggestions.

Updated Me

I really should write something worth while, but I just feel like wasting time. I updated myself with Shari's scarf, Melvin, and a hockey rink. I kind of feel like seeing a hockey game. Anyway, here I am.

Good Bye Ah-nold

Looks like Austrians are a bit pissed at their former favorite son. I only wish that Americans would be repulsed by the death penalty in large droves. It's simply morally repugnant.

Wisconsin had the death penalty; back in the 1800's. This state executed exactly one prisoner by hanging. It went so terribly wrong that the people of Wisconsin outlawed the death penalty and never got the taste back for it. Hopefully it never will.

Virtual Me

Since Jo or Na did it, I thought I'd make an avatar of myself. I'd rather it was a bottle than a can, but oh well. Close enough.

A Little Stuck

Generally, I have no trouble making decisions, but I need help with one. Currently, I'm in a MBA program at Edgewood that's not exactly setting the world on fire. I think the further in that I get, the more I'll get out of it. I'm signed up for a class next semester.

Problem is, I want to finally get my German down. It's not for any important reason other than my own enrichment. The classes conflict.

Suggestions?

Not That Popular

Dave put up a post on this county's most popular names. I'm all the way down to 100 in 2004. The highest my name has ever been is 30 in 1964. My adopted name of Henry clocks in at 110 and my adopted karoke name of Roy is a lowly 470. My middle name, which is David, is popular. Almost nobody knows a Stockland and chances are if you do, you know an English ancestry Stockland. I'm a Norwegian one. All hail the simple minds working at Ellis Island. It's supposed to be Stokland with a cool umlaut over the "o".

Just like the rest of my life, I fly under the radar. There are good parts to it as I hide well from goobers and ass-holes, but then I miss out on some decent people. So be it. I'm not going to change. I old and crotchety already. Find your own name and see if you are common.