Grant's House Of Style

You can not wear flip flops with jeans.

I don't really think you can wear flip flops any time. They are about the most useless piece of footwear I have ever seen. I have serious issues with anyone that wears them as normal footwear. The flip flop was never intended to be worn as a shoe for daily use. It has, as its only practical application, the walk to the pool or the beach from your hotel room. Or, if you happen to be someone luxurious enough to have a lush backyard, then you can wear it for trips through the foliage.

But you can't wear them with jeans.

The very concept of wearing flip flops with a pair of jeans creates a ludicrous contradiction. What are you? Are you dressed for rugged outdoor-ness? Are you casually strolling through the garden? It is an unresolvable dichotomy. On one hand you have your jeans on, and you're dressed for polite society or a day of work. Then I look at your feet and their basically naked. Oh, except you have this pad of plastic cork attached to your foot with a flimsy plastic cord. You look like a moron. You look like an ass. As politically incorrect as it is to say, you look like a homo.

Just don't do it. Spare yourself the ridicule of being stared at and pointed towards. Spare us the indignation of having to get upset by such an asinine choice of footwear.

Just get some regular sandals. It amounts to the same thing, but doesn't look as gay.

P.S. Don't wear socks with your sandals.

If you look closely, you will notice that today's date is 7/11.

Don't you think we should all go out for Slurpees?

World of Warcraft News:

Foder is a homo

Blog Fake Website Of The Day:

http://www.bakedpotatoesargross.com/

Blog Poll Of The Day:

Who do you like better?

A) Angelina Jolie
B) Brad Pitt

Leave it to Future Shop to be a complete gong show.

I go to that accursed store to get myself a Sirius satellite radio. I'm driving to Watson and back by myself tomorrow and that's a lot of boredom to handle at one time. So I thought I'd get myself a radio and listen to something while I travelled the highways.

The buying was not such a big deal. I found what I wanted and it was $20 cheaper than I'd expected so it worked out really well. The portable electronics guy rang up my purchase and all I had to do was get my products swiped for de-magnetization and I was ready to go home.

Future Shop had ONE clerk manning the front.

What the hell is that? Sure, its only Friday night and they're not that busy, but just one clerk? There were ten people lined up to pay and/or clear the magnetic gateway. And they have one poor schmuck that's supposed to handle all of this. Some retarded floor manager is just rocking on her heels over by customer service but ringing people through the till is not HER responsibility. So the typical wait for service at the Future Shop front counter remains ten deep, even though its Friday night and not a busy time in the store.

Can someone please explain to me why, like lemmings, we continue to frequent these non-customer friendly establishments?

I need an opportunity to vent. This is nothing I have any hope of affecting any kind of positive change on. The only hope I have for a sense of improved emotion is to speak out about it, loudly.

I just got screwed out of $1330.

I think we all know about credit card promotions. If you sign up with X card they'll give you Y number of Air Miles, or some other commodity the scale of which is absurdly small, relative to what you've spent to get it. I, with my MasterCard, had something called FirstHome Dollars. What this plan did was, for every X number of dollars I spent with my MasterCard, the credit card company would chip in some almost infinitessimally small amount towards a down payment on a house.

Normally this would be a good arrangement for the credit card company. Who waits long enough to buy a house to accumulate any meaningful amount of credit in their account? What worked against MasterCard in this instance is, I've had this card, and this plan since the day it was issued to be, back when I was 18. That's a long time and a lot of purchases on which to accumulate FirstHome Dollars. So it stands to reason that I'd amass quite a few.

As you all know, I'm buying a home now. So by the obvious extension, I want my FirstHome Dollars. So I phone up the good people at MasterCard and ask them to forward my money. At first the guy didn't know what I was talking about but a couple of prods and he got the point. He was happy to fulfill my request and told me he had to close out my account. I didn't care as I'm only buying one FirstHome.

So the statement comes in the mail today. I was all excited as this was half my downpayment. I open the letter and it says $2500 on it. What the hell is this!?! That's only 2/3 of my money! Where's MY MONEY!!!

I fretted about it for about an hour and I couldn't take it anymore. I had to know what the story about this was. So I called up MasterCard and asked them what the hell was the deal with this? The guy again didn't know what I was talking about but he went off the line for a couple of minutes and got the scoop for me.

Apparently you are only allowed to withdraw a maximum of $2500 from your FirstHome Dollars account at any one time.

What the HELL is up with that!?! Under what logic would you ever buy two FirstHome's?

The explanation I got was, you could transfer the remaining balance to a close family member, like a son or daughter. Now explain to me, how would I have a child that could use this, if I'm getting my FirstHome now?

Idiots! So now I'm out $1300 and I don't feel particularly good about it. If any of you want to switch from MasterCard to VISA in protest, feel free to join me.

I had perhaps one of the most annoying moments of my life this morning.

Earlier I told the story of how I went to the medical clinic and they gave me grief about how I didn't have a current health services card. If you look at your card you'll see there's a number on the back you can call, about updates to your information and getting a new card.

So I called the number.

This is how pathetic things have gotten with these phone-in procedures. They want you to call in but you don't even get an actual, live person. They make you leave a series of messages, based on pre-recorded questions.

What's your name, including correct spelling?

What is your address?

What is your home and work phone number?

After each question is a repetition of the same, three option menu. Do you want to hear the options again? Do you want to re-record your answer? Do you want to continue? The whole ordeal makes you feel like a trained circus seal. Which might not be so bad but it makes you feel like an autistic trained circus seal.

Saskatchewan Health should be shot, stabbed, pissed on, scraped up and deposited in a hole full of feces for foisting such an abomination on us. If I wanted to feel any more neglected, abused and taken for granted, I'd probably actually use the Saskatchewan health services system.

All around, I give the experience a fat ZERO.

Wednesday . . . both a blessing and a curse.

Blessing - I got the second half of my tax refund.

Curse - The almost endless patch for World of Warcraft.

I think the best part of being the controller in a company has to be handing out the pay stubs every two weeks. It must feel kinda like being Santa Claus.

If . . .

. . . you are playing World of Warcraft, and

If . . .

. . . you are questing at the north end of Felwood and

If . . .

. . . you are a Level 60 King Ding-a-Ling and

If . . .

. . . you are killing Deadwood furbolgs

Knock It Off Already!!! I'm trying to complete the damn quest!!!

Blog Question Of The Day:

Is it possible to buy a brand new IROC?

Things That Piss Me Off:

I haven't really teed off on anyone lately but I think the time has come.

I went to the medical clinic this afternoon. I've had these blood tests outstanding for quite some time and it occurred to me that if I went right after lunch, I could satisfy the condition of going 12-16 hours after my last ingestion of medication.

I go in there and she asks for my Saskatchewan Health Services card. I'm used to it because they ask for any card before they'll help you out these days. She looks at the card and says, "oh, your health services card has expired."

The only response I could muster to that was, "so?"

"Well, we're not supposed provide services when your card has expired."

Just take my blood already! God, christ, like I'm supposed to know my stupid health services card has expired. I haven't used the stupid thing in a year and a half! And I'm supposed to notice that the idiotic sticker has expired!?!

The health services card is the most idiotic implementation that has ever taken place in the history of the Saskatchewan government. The land of free health care and oh, now you have to show a card to get free services. But if you don't have a card, they don't really care! You still get free health care. So what's the point of the stupid card? Apparently its for the purpose of annoying me. And providing an opportunity for sanctimonious office staff to give me grief when I'm not really in the mood to be getting my blood taken in the first place.

P.S. Future Shop sucks goat balls. They advertise games for $19.99 and then don't have any of the games in question, in stock in the store.

You are never more annoyed than when you hit the 'Suspend' key, that is conveniently placed next to the 'Escape' key on your keyboard, and you screw up the really complicated drafting procedure you were enacting.

Well that was a game!

The Oilers made a liar out of me. When they lost their goalie in game one I figured they were done. When they went down 3-1 in the series I thought they were done. But they kept coming back.

Two teams showed up for a hockey game tonight. Both teams brought their best game. Tonight it was apparent that one teams best game was a lot better than the others.

Can someone tell me what the deal is with the parking lot on the north end of Confederation Park Mall? I tried to get into the mall from the north side this evening and the experience was nearly enough to make me homicidal.

First of all I couldn't hit the entrance to the stupid mall. They put the damn 'Welcome' sign between these two paved stretches. One in, one out, wouldn't you think? No, one's for the stupid buses. So I had to make a loop through the bus park and back onto the street.

Next I look for a place to park. The bloody lot is all twisted up into little clumps of parking spots. I drive up to the place that is near the door I want. I can see lots of spots available here. But can I get to them in a convenient manner? NO! The only place into this clump is well back from the door so I have to drive past the place I want to be, turn around in a full part of the lot (again a clump of parking spots) and go back to the entry.

Then, when I'm leaving the lot I have to stop for a STOP sign. But the sign is about a hundred feet back from the actual intersection. So I go through my stop sign, and get to the intersection, and this guy coming from the other direction thinks I'm trying to cut him off.

Once again the Confederation Park Mall proves to be an unholy blight on this city. I'd tell you to write your councillor about it but we all know that no one in Saskatoon cares about Confederation Park Mall.

The funniest thing happened on the golf course today.

We were waiting on the 18th tee box at Moon Lake. I should clarify this by saying we were playing the Moors as our back nine, since they have 27 golf holes at Moon Lake. The ninth hole of the Moors set has as its final hole, a par 5 that goes along the shore of the actual Moon Lake.

There was a backlog of people waiting to tee off so we had time to kill at the tee box. Since we were at the lakes edge, a couple of the guys thought they'd spend the time practicing their drives. To accomplish this they were hitting range balls they had in their bags, into the lake. The goal of their efforts was to drive one all the way across the lake to the shore on the other side.

To end the suspense I'll tell you that no one was able to make it across the lake. Based on the success of the others, I suspect I might have been able to. I do not, however, have any excess balls in my golf bag that I was willing to sacrifice to the attempt.

With his last spare ball, one guy teed up and reared back for a titantic swing at his golf ball. He intended to really tie into this ball. It was, however, not a great day for golf today. It rained all day, and everything was slick and wet. The guy followed through on his attempt but the slippery situation caught up to him. His driver tomahawked out of his grip and went flying through the air. Like a boomerang it whuw-whuw-whuw-ed through the hair, before splashing down into the lake about 10 yards out.

Its not nice to laugh but damn was that funny!

Well, that was an exciting game!

I do, however, think the Oilers gave that one away. My opinion was that after two periods they had it all but wrapped up. A good solid effort in the third effort and they lead the Stanley Cup series by one game.

They didn't put in a solid effort.

But to their credit, they made a comeback. And the tying goal was spectacular. I recall using an expletive when I saw it.

But disaster struck. Not once but twice.

I mean no disrespect to the Oilers. I really hope they can prevail in this Stanley Cup series. However, based on what Coach McTavish said in the press conference, I think the safe money is on Carolina.

One of the keys to understanding me is found in the following song:

Pixies - Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf)

Things That Piss Me Off:

Do you know what I hate? Websites that proport to have a 'picture of the day' but then the picture never changes. Or, it changes once a month, thus negating the concept of the 'picture of the day'. Or even more infuriating, at least for me because I still check the damn site every day, the 'picture of the day' is a revolving series of just 5 pictures. So, while the picture does change from day to day, if you've seen the whole series, there's not a hell of a lot to be gained by checking anymore.

And yet, like the eternal optimist, I still look, just in case they've decided to stop pissing me off. It hasn't happened yet.